Vol. 12, Issue 1 (2023)

Author(s):
Vanai Peideh NG, Dr. Mohammed Farooq, Dr. Vijayakumar B. Narayanapur, Dr. Sanjeevraddi Reddy, Dr. Satish D and Dr. Shivayogi Ryavalad

Abstract:
An experiment was carried out on effect of chemical mutagens on morphological, yield and quality traits in Davana (Artemisia pallens Wall.) during Rabi season, 2021-22 at the department of Plantation, Spices, Medicinal and Aromatic Crops, College of Horticulture, Bagalkot. The experiment was laid out in Factorial Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with two replications. Two cultivars of Davana i.e. Theni (Cv₁) and Hosur (Cv₂) were assessed for growth, yield and quality parameters under the influence of chemical mutagens. Two chemical mutagens used were EMS (0.01, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20%) and DMS (0.025, 0.050, 0.075, 0.100, 0.125%). The growth parameters such as seed germination (73.50%), minimum number of days taken for first flowering (62.25 days) and 50% flowering (91.50 days), number of inflorescence (74.90) and number of capitula per plant (286.61) were found to be better under EMS treatments irrespective of the cultivars. The other parameters such as survival percentage (76.56%), plant height (37.82 cm), number of branches per plant (23.38), flower head diameter (0.64 cm), hundred flower head weight (4.72 g), fresh herbage yield (23.01 t/ha) and dry herbage yield (5.99 t/ha) were found to be better under the influence of DMS treatments irrespective of the cultivars of Davana. Among the concentrations of EMS and DMS, 0.05% EMS and 0.050% DMS gives better result in terms of vegetative growth and herbage yield for Theni cultivar (Cv₁) while 0.10% EMS and 0.075% DMS gives better result for Hosur cultivar (Cv₂). Thus, as the concentration of both the mutagens increases, vegetative, floral and yield characters were reduced in Davana. Among the two chemical mutagens used, DMS treatment was more effective resulting in better performance for both the cultivars. Of the two cultivars used, Hosur shows better response to the mutagenic agents comparatively.