Department of Plant Breeding, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
Treatment of seeds of Sorghum variety Experimental-3 with EMS and MMS did not produce mutants similar to the colchicine mutants reported by Franzke and Ross (1965, 1957). However, chlorophyll and morphological mutants were produced in comparable frequencies as reported for barley and wheat. Probably the colchicine-induced mutants are of different class and the drug has some specificity of action, since similar mutants reoccur quite frequently in the independent treatments of the same variety (Chen and Ross, 1963), and only a variety of Sorghum (Atkinson, Franzke and Ross, 1957) and barley (Gilbert and Patterson, 1965) respond to the mutagenic action of colchicine.
MMS at 0.01 per cent. concentration was found more efficient than 0.01 per cent. EMS in inducing chlorophyll mutants, though higher concentrations of MMS were highly toxic. Due to high toxicity of MMS it may not be useful in inducing very high rates of mutation, though this could be achieved by EMS.
