Characterization of induced mutants in short grain aromatic non-basmati rice Badshabhog

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the agronomic performance of advance generation 28 mutant families in the M4 generation. The mutant families were derived following pedigree method by treating aromatic short grain non-basmati land race Badshabhog with 200, 300, 400Gy doses of gamma rays. The mutant families retained the aroma of mother and were 10-15 days earlier. Agronomic performance reveals that height of many families was reduced which will render plants to be lodging resistant and responsive to higher doses of fertilizer. Some of the families have desirable mutant characters viz. flag leaf, panicle exsertion, panicle number and test weight. Majority of the families have reduction in panicle length, spikelet and grain number, spikelet fertility and grain yield which may be improved through gene cleaning. Segregation patterns of the mutant characters indicated that mutations are recessive and micromutations in nature. Appearance of multiple mutant characters in a plant may not be due to true mutations for all such characters, but may be due to pleiotropic effects of mutant genes. The mutants may be used directly and/or indirectly in recombination breeding programme for their beneficial mutant characters through Mutant × Parent and Mutant × Mutant crosses.