BGN 8: Gamma ray induced polygenic mutations in barley at different low seed moisture levels BARLEY GENETICS NEWSLETTER, VOL. 8, II. RESEARCH NOTES
Singh and Singh, pp. 93-94

II. 34 Gamma ray induced polygenic mutations in barley at different low seed moisture levels.

Jagdamba Singh and Rishi Muni Singh. Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Banaras Hindu Univeristy, Varansai 221005, India.

Induced polygenic mutations were studied in barley var. 'Amber' after treating the seeds with gamma rays (15 Kr) at normal (11.2 percent) and different low seed moisture levels (7.5, 6.0, 5.5, 4.5, 3.5, and 3.0 percent) in M3 generation. Normal looking plants were selected in M2 generation which were sown in a randomized block design in M3 with three replications. Data were recorded on plant height, spike length, no. of tillers/plant and no. of grains/spike on 150 randomly selected plants in each treatment. It was observed that low seed moisture levels modified and effects of gamma rays resulting into considerable variation in yield contributing characters as compared to normal seed moisture content. Different characters responded differentially to gamma rays in normal and low seed moisture levels with regard to means and variances. The test for homogeneity of variance (Bartlett's test) due to plants within the moisture (for plant height, tiller no. and grains/spike) revealed heterogeneity of variances (Table 1). It suggests that moisture levels greatly influenced the effectiveness of gamma rays.

Table 1. X2 test for four important characters in barley after gamma rays (15 Kr) treatment of different seed moisture levels.

In the present study, the direction of change in mean was in negative direction for plant height and positive direction for tiller no. and no. of grains/spike but for spike length, it was both in plus and minus directions. The variance was increased for all the characters at all the moisture levels except for no. of grains/spike at 3.0 percent moisture level (Table 2).

Table 2. Induced genetic variability for four important yield contributing characters (M3 generation) after gamma rays (15 (15 Kr) treatment of barley var. 'Amber' at different seed moisture levels.

It may thus be concluded from the present study that low seed moisture contents (5.5 to 3.5 percent) at the time of seed irradiation significantly influenced various yield components both in positive and negative directions as compared to normal seed moisture (11.2 percent) and therefore may be quite useful in creating genetic variability for use in barley improvement.

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