Induced mutation in plant improvement has been
used in several crops to generate new sources of genetic variations. A study
was conducted to determine the effect of different doses of
gamma irradiation on different morpho-agronomic characteristics. Agronomic traits that were analyzed
included: grain yield,
number of pods/plant, number of seeds/plant and weight of 100 seeds and numbers
of days to 50% flowering. Morphometric characterisation of the descriptive data
included plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves/plant, leaflet length,
leaflet width and number of ramification/ plant.
Groundnut seeds were treated with various doses of gamma rays (100, 200, 400
and 600 Gy). Among the various dose treatments, gamma rays treatment at
100 Gy resulted in a higher increase of grain yield and other morpho-agronomic parameters especially for
the JL24 variety. In fact the gamma irradiation at 100 Gy increased significantly
grain yield by 14% for JL24, and 4 % for JL12. The number of pods per plant was
increased by 2% for JL12 and 37% for JL24. For the number of seeds per plant,
there was a significant increase of 8% for JL12, and 62% for JL24 at 100 Gy. A
similar trend was observed for the JL24 at 200 Gy dose. Higher doses of gamma rays (400 and 600 Gy) reduced significantly plant growth and grain yield. The
usefulness of the mutants identified in a groundnut breeding program is
discussed.