Thank you for your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience. May Help Reduce Anemia in Humans Diggle, a mutant pea plant with a suicidal love for iron, may someday offer scientists a biotechnology approach for reducing anemia. Inadequate iron in the diet is the leading cause. ARS is the USDA's chief scientific agency. This would especially benefit people in developing countries, who mostly eat vegetarian diets.
Plants hoard iron, using a protein, ferritin, to store it in seeds and leaves.
But ferritin also binds iron, making it hard for the body to use. Rice has only 6 parts per million iron after milling. Diggle peas have a whopping 250 to 280 ppm iron. The plant ships so much of this essential mineral to leaves and seeds that it eventually poisons itself. All plants move iron to seeds with a special biochemical.