Vol. 11, Special Issue 6 (2022)

Author(s):
Poonam Maurya, Bhupendra Sagore, Shikha Jain, Shikha Saini, Aditya Ingole, Rakesh Meena and Vinay Kumar

Abstract:
Fruits play a significant role in human nutrition and as a commercial item in commerce; consequently, fruit crop genetic modification is required to increase production. Fruit crop improvement though traditional means is impeded by a prolonged long juvenile phase, incompatibility, excessive fruit drop, polyploidy, apomixes, heterozygosity etc. The use of genetic variation, whether natural or induced, aids tremendously in fruit tree genetic improvement. Mutational breeding is a useful strategy for developing horticultural varieties with better phenotypic and genotypic characteristics. Mutations are the primary cause of genetic differences found in plants. Mutagens, both physical and chemical, are mostly utilized to induce desirable traits. Modification in flowering time and fruit ripening, breaking linkages of undesirable traits, change in fruit colour, inducing dwarfism, inducing self-compatibility, seedlessness, self-thinning and pathogen resistance, increasing ploidy level, inducing variability in already adapted species, restoring fertility in sterile hybrids, increasing fruit size with better taste and aroma have all been successfully introduced through mutation breeding.