Genetic improvement of chickpea (culivar ‘vishwas’, phule G-5) through induced mutagenesis

Three mutagens, sodium azide (SA), ethyl methane sulphonate (EMS) and gamma radiation (GR) were employed to induce genetic variability for improvement of chickpea cultivar ‘Vishwas’ (Phule G-5). Six true breeding mutants were isolated and studied for various quantitative and qualitative traits in M₄ generation. Induced mutant lines showed both positive and negative increases in quantitative traits. The mutant lines differed considerably from control. The early mutant lines matured eight days earlier. Tall mutant plants were 40.99 cm in height. Roundish pod mutant were with a 2 fold increase in the number of pod and number of seed over the control. The protein content ranged from 254.51 to 286.05 mg/g against 262.26 mg/g in the control. The higher heritability coupled with high genetic advance was observed for quantitative traits like plant height and number of pods per plant. Variation was also observed for number of bands electrophoresed in seed protein of mutants.