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Life Science Research and Sustainable Development ISBN: 978-98-84663-33-9

conventional plant breeding and directly contribute toward the conservation and use of plant
genetic resources.
To induce genetic variability in various crops different mutagens have been used by
various breeders. Since the discovery of mutation effect of X-rays in the 1920s Lewis John Stadler
has recognized induction of mutation as a potential technique for crop improvement (Shu et al.,
2012). The first disease resistant mutant was reported in barley in 1942 (Usharani & Ananda
Kumar, 2015). This finding leads to further work on mutagenesis and helps to develop and release
different mutant of several crops.
Chemical mutagens have been successfully employed in mutation breeding programs to
artificially generate variations for the development of new varieties with improved traits, such as
an increased yield, reduced plant height, resistance to disease and other desirable agronomic
characters (Khursheed, et al., 2015, Tantray et al., 2017). Chemical mutagens primarily induce
single point mutation so, it has been most commonly used in reverse genetic studies, and current
technologies can also be easily adapted for their discovery (Jankowicz-Cieslak & Till, 2016).
Gathering of information on newly released mutant varieties is further complicated by
the fact that mutant varieties have been released in approximately sixty countries (Table 1).
Additionally, in most of these countries induced mutations are used for improvement of
various crops, often in different plant breeding stations.

Table 1: Number of officially released mutant varieties listed by country

Country Common name and number of released varieties Total
Algeria soybean (1) 1
Argentina groundnut (2), lemon (1), orange (1), peach (1), wheat (1) 6
Australia blue lupin (1), lupin (1), oat (2), serradella (1), soybean (1), subterranean 7
clover (1)
Austria apple (1), barley (9), durum (6), faba bean (1) 17
Bangladesh black gram (1), chickpea (1), jute (1), mungbean (4), oriental mustard (3), 23
rapeseed (2), rice (5), tomato (3), tossa jute (3)
Belgium azalea (8), barley (1), chrysanthemum (7), ficus (2), guzmania (1), potato 22
(1), red clover (1), ryegrass (1)
Brazil chrysanthemum (3), common bean (3), rice (1), wheat (2) 9
Bulgaria barley (4), durum (4), pepper (3), lentil (1), maize (8), peach (1), pepper 30
(1), soybean (3), sweet pepper (2), tobacco (1), wheat (2)
Burkina Faso rice (2) 2
apple (2), apricot (1), barley (5), begonia (2), common bean (12), 35
Canada flax/linseed (3), rapeseed (1), rose (2), Russian wildrye (1), sweet cherry
(5), tobacco (1)
Chile barley (1), wheat (1) 2

https://jesjalna.org/Zoology-Publications/index.html 4 Department of Zoology, J. E. S. College, Jalna