Division of Vegetable Crops and Floriculture, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-12
Online published on 25 January, 2012.
It has been possible to obtain mutations for flower colour in 3 cultivars of rose viz., ‘Christian Dior’ ‘Queen Elizabeth’ and ‘Kiss of Fire’ after gamma irradiation, which might be of direct commercial importance as they are found to deviate from other types. Five to ten kr of gamma rays has proved to be the best for treatment of dormant buds. Dormancy of buds is induced after both gamma irradiation and chemical treatments. 10 kr of gamma rays proved toxic to all the cultivars and treatments above this did not give survival under Delhi conditions. Chemical mutagens including NMU (N-nitroso-n-methyl urethane), EMS (Ethyl-methane-sulphonate), E.I. (Ethylene-imine) in different concentrations in combination with DMSO (Dimethyl sulfoxide) have been tried on growing plants. Dipping buds in NMU and EMS resulted in mutants for colour in ‘Christian Dior’ and reduction in petal number in ‘Kiss of Fire’ respectively.
