Vol. 12, Issue 6 (2023)

Author(s):
Sumit Pal, Anil K Singh and Anjana Sisodia

Abstract:
A field experiment was carried out to see the effect of gamma irradiation and oryzalin on flowering and seed attributes in balsam genotypes for two years. Uniform and healthy seeds of 29 genotypes (BDR-22, BDR-1, BDV-1, BS-39, BS-14, BS-20, BS-39, BS23, BSW-7, BSP-32, BDR-2, BSW-6, BDP-13, BDR-3, BDV-17, BD- Rosi, BDR-4, BDR-5, BDR-6, BSV-11, BS-28, BSP-9, BSP-1, BSW-27, BSR-16, BDV-2, BDP-1, BDP-2, BDR-7) of balsam were used for treatment with physical mutagen (Gamma ray) and chemical mutagen (Oryzalin) in the study. Seeds were irradiated with different doses (35 and 40 kR) of gamma rays from ⁶⁰Co source and treated with aqueous solution of oryzalin (50 µmol, 100 µmol and 150 µmol). The treated seeds were shown in nursery and seedling were transplanted in pots after 21 days of sowing. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with three replications. Treated plants showed deleterious effect of gamma irradiation and oryzalin although at lowest dose plants were not affected much. Minimum days to bud initiation were taken by genotype BSP-1 (35.97 days) and genotype BD-Rosi (36.43 days) in M₁, whereas in M₂ generation genotype BDR-6 (37.78) and genotype BDR-5 (38.13) were taken minimum days in bud initiation. In M₁ generation, minimum days to flowering was recorded in untreated plants (45.24 days)’ whereas, maximum days flowering was recorded in plants treated with gamma rays 35 kR (49.41 days) followed by plants treated with gamma rays 40 kR (48.57 days) and oryzalin 150 µmol (47.84 days). Maximum number of seeds per pod was recorded in untreated plants (12.21) and Minimum number of seeds per pod was recorded in plants treated with gamma rays 40 kR (11.43) M₁ generation.