No abstract

A change in the genetic makeup of a plant is an essential prerequisite for the breeding programs and induce mutagenesis is an important approach to create the variations within crop germplasm. The main objective of this study is to find the mutants in chemically treated M2 chilli plant populations. Since, mutagenesis in chilli plants was induced through EMS and Cd to increase the genetic variability that results in thirteen mutant plants at M2 generation from the genetic background of chilli varieties NS 1101 and NS 1701 DG, respectively. Most of the mutant phenotypes observed felled within qualitative and quantitative characteristics the seven major categories including plant height, leaf shape, leaf color, branch, and flower color, fruits, 1000 seed weight, yield, and root length. The inter-population differences were carried out through analysis of variance of quantitative traits of chemically treated chilli populations. Results reflect increased mean value in quantitative traits that could validate the improvement over the parental lines. Fruit number and seed weight were the main priority traits in the selection of high yield plants and these quantitative traits have a strong association with the yield of the plant. Genetic variability induced by chemical mutagens in chilli can integrate into further chilli breeding programs as new crop germplasm with improved agronomic traits. Mutants selected from 0.2% treated chilli populations can be used to develop an efficient and fast crop variety of chilli with desirable traits. The present study about the genetic variability induced by chemical mutagenesis provides more opportunities to bring diversity in the genetic makeup of chilli plant for improvement of the desirable traits.