1988 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 141-150
The in vitro adventitious bud technique was used in conjunction with gamma irradiation for the induction of mutation in red pepper. The twelve-day-old seedlings were irradiated by gamma radiation at the exposure doses of 0, 0.5, 0.75, 1.0 and 1.25krad delivered at the dose rate of 5krad/h. After irradiation adventitious shoots were induced from the excised cotyledons. The shoots were rooted and the obtained plantlets were grown under greenhouse conditions until maturity. No variant segregation was observed in control plants from both seeds and non-irradiated cotyleclon explants whereas visible variants were found among the M1 plants regenerated from irradiated cotyledon explants at the frequency of 4.4%. The variation spectrum was consisted of plant type, leaf, flower and fruit variation. Rate of chimerism based on visual characters was considerably high, indicating the multicellular origin of adventitious shoot. A number of variants were recovered in the immediate gamma ray treated generation (M1). Most of the variant characters obtained were transmitted to the M2 progeny and were considered as mutants. Some of the characters were bred true and many were segregated. Most of the mutated characters were stabilized in the M3 generation. Three types of the variant pheonotypes were lost and the causes were discussed.
