Variability in morphological characters and alkaloid profile of EMS induced mutants of Catharanthus roseus (L.) G. Don

Seeds of Catharanthus roseus were mutagenised with ethyl methane sulphonate. On screening induced variability ten morphological variants (NV₁-NV₁₀) were isolated and their morphological variability was assessed. The hierarchical clustering analysis revealed four major groups based on morphological attributes. Genotypes with higher total alkaloid content in leaf were placed together in cluster-I and higher leaf yield plant^–1, root yield plant^–1 and total alkaloid content in root were placed in cluster-II. Genotypes with lowest mean values of all mentioned traits except leaf lamina width and petiole length were placed in cluster III. The consistency in performance of NV-1 and NV-10 from M1 to M3 without any significant variance in their progeny traits, showed that these were true breeding mutants. Alkaloid profiling of these ten variants was carried out by using recently developed DART MS technique. Marked variations in the alkaloid profile were also noted among them which signify the use of induced mutation in developing desirable ‘chemocultivars’.