“…We obtained moderate heritability (greater than 30%) for several elements, including Mg, phosphorus (P), sulfur (S), potassium (K), Ca, Mn, Fe, Co, Zn, strontium (Sr), and molybdenum (Mo). Low heritabilities were reported previously for seed accumulation of aluminum (Al) and As (Norton et al, 2010) as well as for Se, Na, Al, and rubidium (Rb) in a similarly designed study in maize seed kernels . The relatively lower heritabilities for these elements, including boron (B), Cd, and Se, could be explained by environmental differences between the experiments, element accumulation near the limit of detection via ICP-MS, and the absence of genetic variation affecting the concentrations of these elements.…”