Background:
The elemental composition of maize grains depends on the soil, land and
environment characteristics where the crop grows. These effects are important to evaluate the availability
of nutrients with complex dynamics, such as the concentration of macro and micronutrients in
soils, which can vary according to different topographies. There is available scarce information about
the influence of topographic characteristics (upland and lowland) where culture is developed with the
mineral composition of crop products, in the present case, maize seeds. On the other hand, the study
of the topographic effect on crops using multivariate analysis tools has not been reported.
Objective:
This paper assesses the effect of topographic conditions on plants, analyzing the mineral
profiles in maize seeds obtained in two land conditions: uplands and lowlands.
Materials and Methods:
The mineral profile was studied by microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry.
Samples were collected from lowlands and uplands of cultivable lands of the north-east of
La Pampa province, Argentina.
Results:
Differentiation of maize seeds collected from both topographical areas was achieved by
principal components analysis (PCA), cluster analysis (CA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA).
PCA model based on mineral profile allowed to differentiate seeds from upland and lowlands by the
influence of Cr and Mg variables. A significant accumulation of Cr and Mg in seeds from lowlands
was observed. Cluster analysis confirmed such grouping but also, linear discriminant analysis
achieved a correct classification of both the crops, showing the effect of topography on elemental
profile.
Conclusions:
Multi-elemental analysis combined with chemometric tools proved useful to assess the
effect of topographic characteristics on crops.
