1Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Agricultural College and Research Institute, (TNAU), Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India
2Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai
3Agricultural College and Research Institute, Killikulam, Tamil Nadu
*email: gowthamir111@gmail.com
Online published on 15 December, 2016.
Mutation breeding is the one of the tool for crop improvement. It has been observed that induced mutations can increase yield as well as other quantitative traits in plants. Hence present study was conducted to study the effect of gamma rays and electron beam on various morphological traits which were measured quantitatively. The results showed that plant height at maturity, numberof grains perpanicle, 1000 grain weight and single plant yield were decreased with increased dose of gamma ray irradiation and electron beam. The other characters days to 50% flowering, number of productive tillers per plant, leaf length, leaf breadth, panicle length variation over control wasobserved in terms ofpositive and negative direction in all the doses of gamma rays and electron beam in both the varieties (ADT 37 and ADT 45) and varietal difference was observed. Electron beam wasobserved to be more effective than gamma rays as it generated mutants with more variation in trait values, which later caused higher physical injury.
Gamma rays, electron beam, quantitative characters
