INDUCED GENETIC VARIABILITY FOR QUANTITATIVE TRAITS BY GAMMA RAYS IN SOYBEAN JS335

Abstract

JS335 variety of Indian soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill) was treated with 200, 250 and 300 Gy doses of gamma rays with the objective to study the variability in M2 for the qualitative and quantitative characters. The experiment was conducted in the experimental farm of Samarth Agriculture College Deulgaon Raja, Buldana during kharif and Rabi 2016. The treated material along with untreated control planted in M1 generation and individual plants were harvested separately. Harvested seeds of individual plants from M1 generation were planted in non replicated field trial to raise M2 generation. Observations were recorded on different yield attributing characters like days to flowering, days to maturity, plant height, number of branches plant-1, length of primary root, number of pods plant-1 , 100 seed weight and grain yield plant-1. In M2 generation days to flowering and days to maturity increased significantly in all the treatments. Plant height, number of branches plant and length of primary root reduced significantly in all the treatments. Number of pods plant-1 and grain yield plant significantly increased in all the treatments and 100 seed weight significantly decreased in all the treatments as compared to control. Visible macromutants like chlorophyll mutants, early flowering, late flowering, early maturing, late maturing, dwarf, tall, increased root length, increased 100 seed weight, small leaf, wrinkled leaf, viney type mutants, sterile, high yielding, more pods, more branched mutants were identified and isolated in M2 generation. The economical and morphological mutants were isolated from the variety of JS-335. High yielding mutant with 14 to 19 g yield as against 5.39 g in control were identified from this variety. Early maturing mutant matured 13.4 to 22.5 days earlier than control were isolated from this variety. These mutants need to be evaluated for their breeding behavior in further generation and their utilization in improvement of soybean.