EFFECT OF SOME MUTAGENIC AGENTS ON TRITICALE IMPROVEMENT

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out to study the effect of y-ray and El on some of M, growth and yield characters and on frequency and spectrum of mutations induced in M2 and M3. This study was carried out on two lines of triticale namely line 2 and line 7. Air dried seeds of each of the two lines were y­ irradiated with doses of 0.00, 10, 20, 30 and 40 kr, or treated with El -concentrations; 0.0, 0.08, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20 and 0.25%. For growing M1 plants, treated seeds as well as control, were sown in field in a split plot design with three replicates, where the lines occupied the main plots and the mutagenic treatments occupied the subplots. Characters studied on M 1 plants at harvest included; plant height, number of tillers/plant, number of spikes/plant, spike length, number of spikelet s/main spike, and number: of grains/main spike. Seeds were taken at random from 200-300 individual

plants at harvest for each treatment and were sown in 200-300 rows, each M1 plant in a row to grow their M2 generation progenies. During the M2 generation season, all plants from germination to harvest were screened to find out any change in their studied characters and to count the number of these abnormalities. At ripening, all mutated plants were screened in M2 and also, plants of families which did not show any changed forms were harvested and sown in the third season (1997/98) for growing M3 plants.