The investigation was conducted to compare the chlorophyll mutants and visib.1e, viable mutants in M
2 generation and mutations in quantibative characters in M
3 induced by X-ray, thermal neutron and diepoxybutane at the dose of nearly LD
50 on dormant seeds of rice. Frequency of chlorophyll mutation at the seed-bed period was highest in neutron treatment, followed by the X-rayed plot and lowest in the plot of, diepoxybutane treatment. The visible and viable mutants at the heading time and matulity stage were also produced in maximum by neutron, followed by X-ray and minimum by diepoxybutane, though there appeared to be some differences in spectrum. The proportion of the frequency of viable mutation to that of chlorophyll mutation was also changed by mutagens. Although neutrons gave the highest frequency of visible and viable mutations, they also produced the highest number of low fertile strains. The reverse was true in the case of diepoxybutane. The strains derived from M
1-plant which segregated the chlorophyll mutants in M
2 seed-bed, produced much viable mutants at maturity stage as compared with strains from M
1 which did not segregate chloprophyll mutants in M
2 seed-bed. The genetic variances of the stem length and grain weight in M3 generation were increased by treatment but their mean valucs were almost the same as those of non-treated. It appeared that the variances increased both positively and negatively by treatments. The variances were also largest in neutron and smallest in diepoxybutane treatment. These results indicate that it may be a good indicator fcr finding methods to increase the mutation rates in quantitative as well as visible and viable characters to look for the factors that give high frequency of chlorophyll mutations.
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