Mutation breeding in Dianthus caryophyllus for economic traits
Abstract
Dianthus caryophyllus is a commercial season based floricultural crop which grows well in temperate climate all over the world and popular as cut-flowers for its variegated petal’s colour. So, it has terrific market demands in international trading. In this modern era, an agronomic demand of high yielding cultivar of this crop was noticed. Development of cultivars with more desirable floral characteristics and higher productivity are also very important in this crop. Keeping this view in our mind, we undertook the venture of mutation breeding programme by selecting chemical mutagens, viz. Colchicine (Col), Ethyl Methane Sulphonate (EMS), and Maleic Hydrazide (MH) at different concentrations, which were applied on the seeds and leaves. The first mutation generation (M1) seeds of the crop were harvested properly and kept in dessicator for its proper restoring. Thereafter, the second mutation generation (M2) seeds were grown in the next season for availing M2 populations. Various biometrical characters viz. number of tillering per plant, total number of flowers, length (cm) of flowers, length (cm) of petals and weight (g) of 1000 seeds were studied and the obtained raw data were analyzed following the ANOVA model.