Quantitative analysis of induced phenotypic diversity in chickpea using physical and chemical mutagenesis

Abstract

In the present scenario of variable natural environment and sky-high population, sustainable boost in the agricultural productivity is the utmost priority. Induce mutagenesis generates noble genetic combination without affecting the overall genomic makeup of crop, thus, providing essential genetic variation for any crop improvement programme. The present study has been carried out to investigate the comparative mutagenicity of gamma rays and HZ on chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) genotype (avrodhi) at M 2 generation developed from seeds of treated M 1 plants population. The assessment on phenotypic expression for the studied qualitative and quantitative traits showed considerable deviations in all the treatments and significant positive shift in 0.01 and 0.02% doses compared to control while 0.04% proved to be most mutagenic with highest significant negative deviation. A broad spectrum and frequency of macro mutations were induced affecting all plant parts and different morphological variants were screened and isolated on the basis of economic importance from the treated populations. Economically important mutations like branching pattern, stem structure, plant height, dwarf and bushy growth habit, foliage type, flowering behavior and maturity were identified and the frequency of the variants were found to be more in 0.03% doses. Explicitly, HZ doses provided greater deviations in both directions in the quantitative phenotypic characters studied while frequencies of distinct morphological mutants were more in gamma rays. The induced elite phenotypes (blue flowered, double flowered, pigmented leaf, bushy and early mutants), having strong correlation with agronomic traits, will definitely be helpful in selection of improved mutants in subsequent generations.