Induction and Screening of Polygenic Variability For Multiple Characters in Lentil (Lens Culinaris Medik)

All the mutagenized populations showed increased variability over control for the characters under study. Characters like flowering duration, primary branches/plant, effective peduncles/plant, pods/plant and seed yield/plant exhibited more variability than seeds/pod and 1000-seed weight in Mi generation. Among the mutagens, EMS and NEU induced grater variability for most characters than gamma rays and sodium azide (SA). The interfamily analysis revealed a great deal of heterogeneity among different Ma families in each mutagenized population. Using CV as a selection parameter, it was possible to isolate the mutated families in each population, and taking CV and mean together, a number of families were identified (out of the mutated families) as promising for multiple characters with the frequency: 80.6% with NEU, 75.3% with EMS, 72.2% with SA, and 64.0% with gamma rays. Promising m2 plants were selected for multiple characters through intrafamily selection in the exceptionally promising families with different mutagens in the order of NEU EMS>SA>gamma rays.