Effect of Gamma Rays on Quantitative Traits of Urdbean in M1 Generation Veni K.1,*, Vanniarajan C.1, Souframanien J.2 1Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Agricultural College and Research Institute, (TNAU), Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India 2Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai *email: veni_296@rediffmail.com
Online published on 15 December, 2016. Abstract Mutation breeding is relatively a quicker method for improvement of crop plants. It has been observed that induced mutations can increase yield as well as other quantitative traits in plants. The urdbean seeds were irradiated with various doses of gamma rays like 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 Gy. LD50 dose for gamma rays on MDU 1 and VBN (Bg) 4 was324.89 Gy and 318.12 Gy respectively. Theireffect on various morphological characters such as plant height, base length, number of clusters, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, hundred seed weight and single plant yield were measured quantitatively and the results showed that all the characters were considerably reduced when compared to control. The results obtained in the present study clearly indicated that different doses of gamma rays can be effectively utilized to create variability for various quantitative traits of the crop. Top Keywords Gamma rays, Quantitative traits, M1 generation, Mutation, urdbean. Top |