Induction of Chlorophyll and Morphological Mutations through Gamma Ray in Traditional Aromatic Cultivar Tulaipanja

Abstract

The induced mutation of the traditional aromatic cultivar may provide useful alternative or complement to natural variation which may be used directly in mutation breeding or as a source of germ plasm in hybridization programme. Induced mutations irradiated through gamma ray in aromatic cultivar Tulaipanja were studied for chlorophyll and other morphological characters in the M2 generation. The frequency of chlorophyll mutations was high in higher doses. Among the chlorophyll mutants studied, albina was the most frequent, followed by alboxantha, alboviridis, xantha, viridis and striata. The mutation efficiency and the mutagenic effectiveness of the mutagen is more in the lower dose. The semi-dwarf mutants were more prevalent followed by dwarf and semitall-I mutants. The number of height mutants is much more in lower dose than that of higher dose. Among the morphological mutants, a number of mutants with broom stick leaf and few mutants with grassy leaf, rolled leaf, striped leaf were obtained. Besides these, delayed flowering mutants were obtained in low frequency in both the doses while the early flowering mutants were obtained only in the lower dose. The desirable dwarf or semi-dwarf early flowering mutants may be utilized directly or for recombination breeding, whereas the high yielding lines screened may be used directly as aromatic cultivar provided if the performance in the later generation is good.