The Effect of Ethyl Methane Sulphonate and Diethyl Sulphate on Chilli (<i>Capsicum annuum</i> L.) in M<sub>1</sub> Generation

Abstract

In recent years, the demand of chilli has tremendously increased due to its attractive market price and multifarious used in cooked and processed forms. At present people are much concerned about the fruit quality and yield. Therefore, attention is being paid for development of genotypes having high yield potential with desirable fruit quality characters in a short period of time. For this purpose, seeds of chilli were mutagenised with ethyl methane sulphonate (EMS) and diethyl sulphate (DES) to determine their mutagenic sensitivity in M1 generation. The increasing concentration of EMS and DES decreased in morphological and yield characters. The spectrum of mutation and induced variability for various quantitative traits were observed in M1 generation such as germination (%), plant height, primary and secondary branches per plant, days to first flowering, fruit length (cm), fruit girth (cm), total number of fruits per plant, number of seeds per fruit, seed weight per fruit (g), 100 seed weight (g) and pericarp: seed ratio showed variability in chilli with the effect of EMS and DES. The percentage of chromosomal abnormalities in different mitotic stages was significantly higher than that of the control in all the treatment concentrations.