Vol. 11, Issue 2 (2022)

Author(s):
Arya S Nair and Gayathri G

Abstract:
Mutation breeding is an important tool for creating variability and the source of new breeding materials. Ethyl Methane Sulphonate (EMS) is a very potent chemical mutagen. The present study envisages the optimization of doses of mutagen for fodder cowpea and analysis of M₁ generation. Fodder cowpea seeds were treated with different concentrations of EMS (0.1%, 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.4% and 0.5%) and lethal dose 50 (LD₅₀) value was determined using probit analysis. Effective doses were fixed according to LD₅₀ value. Analysis of M₁ generation was carried out on cowpea, treated with effective doses of mutagen. Germination parameters like seedling shoot length, root length, vigour index and the quantitative characters like number of pods/plant, pod length, number of seeds/plant and seed yield/plant and presence of chlorophyll mutants were recorded from M₁ generation. All the biometric characters showed wide variation among the mutant population. Chlorophyll mutant plants were observed in all mutated populations. Presence of chlorophyll mutants were recorded higher in 0.51% of EMS treatment. Generally, a reduction in the quantitative parameters was noted with the increase of concentration of the mutagen.