Comparative studies on the nutrients and mineral elements content of the two grass species was conducted at Gangam Rangeland, Shagari L.G.A., Sokoto state. Sokoto lies on latitude 12.00 0 and 13.60 0 N and longitude 4.80 0 and 6.50 0 E and altitude 350m above sea level. The result show that P. pedicellatum had high crude protein (Cp) ad crude fibre (Cf) content than A. gayanus. The high Cp content was attributed to its leafy nature (having abundant leaves) as Cp is more concentrated in leaves, whereas the high Cf content was possibly due to its stemmy nature particularly at the end of the growing period. However, in terms of Ether extract (Ee) and Ash content, A. gayanus had more. The high Ash content was probably as a result of high mineral elements content of the grass species. On the other hand, A. gayanus had high Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), Magnesium (Mg), Iron (Fe), Copper (Cu) and Zinc (Zn) content, while P. pedicellatum has high Calcium (Ca) and Sodium (Na) content. The high mineral elements content of A. gayanus made the grass more useful for grazing and feeding of livestock. The high Ca content of P. pedicellatum may account for its high Cf content as Ca forms structural components of cell walls and membranes.

The proximate, minerals constituents and anti-nutritional factors of Hura crepitans seeds were evaluated. The results of the proximate analysis showed that 3.13%, 4.00%, 7.83%, 33.17%, 17.30%, 8.17%, 29.53% were the percentage composition of moisture, ash, crude lipid, crude protein, fibre and carbohydrate respectively. The calorific value was obtained to be 485.85±7.22 kJ/kg. The anti-nutritional analysis showed that phytate had the highest concentration of 20.28±0.90 while oxalate has the lowest concentration of 0.017±0.15 mg/100g dry weight respectively. The mineral analysis of Hura crepitans seed also indicates that K has the highest value of 238.33 mg/100g dry weight while Cd with a value 0.71±0.01 mg/100g dry weight has the least. The result shows that the H. crepitans seeds if properly utilized can serve as good source of minerals.Keywords: Anti-nutritional, Hura crepitans, Proximate, Mineral, Nutritional

INTRODUCTIONHeavy metals are elements with metallic properties (e.g. conductivity and ductility) atomic masses greater than 20. an ill-defined group of inorganic chemical hazards.Although Metals are natural components in soil, contamination results from the rapidly expanding industrial areas, mine tailings, disposal of high metal gasoline and paints, land application of fertilizers, animal manures, sewage sludge, pesticides, wastewater irrigation, coal combustion residues, spillage of petrochemicals, and atmospheric deposition (Rahman et al., 2013). Contamination of with heavy metals may pose risks and hazards to humans and the ecosystem through: direct ingestion or contact with contaminated soil, food chain (soil→plant soil→plant→animal→human), drinking of contaminated ground water, reduction in food quality via phytotoxicity and reduction in land usability for agricultural production food insecurity and land tenure problems (

Phytoremediation is an alternative method for restoring soils polluted with heavy metals which is cost-effective and environment-friendly. The present study evaluated the potential of Ipomoea asarifolia to remediate soils experimentally-amended with Cadmium. The plant was grown on soils amended with 0, 1500, 2000, and 2500 mg CdCl2 salt. The salt was mixed with small portions of the soils and made upto 3kg salt/soil mixtures each. These were applied into 4 separate polythene-pots labelled; A, B, C and D respectively. Sample A containing 3kg non-amended soil (without Cd) served as the control. The concentrations of Cd applied to the soils were therefore; 0, 306.61, 408.82 and 511.02 mg//kg soils in the samples AD respectively. Atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) was used to analyse the bioaccumulation of Cd in the plant's parts, over three harvesting phases of the study period. The results revealed that I. asarifolia is a good phytoaccumulator as it accumulated a total biomass of 0.23 ± 0.63, 272.85 ± 1.99, 377.40 ± 0.63 and 459.48 ± 0.60 mg/kg Cd from the amended soils AD respectively. The Transportation Indices; RTI and STI for translocation of Cd to the plant's stems and leaves were both greater than 1 (TI >1), indicating that the plant has a phytoextraction potential for Cadmium. These results therefore, suggest that I. asarifolia could be effective in phytoremediation of Cadmium-polluted environments.