Assessment of Gamma Rays Induced Genetic Variability, Heritability and Genetic Advance in Macrosperma and Microsperma Lentils (Lens culinaris Medik.
Seeds each of two lentil cultivars, LH90 54 (macrosperma) and LH89 48 (microsperma) were treated with three doses of gamma rays (5, 10 and 15 kR) In both the cultivars, all the M1 plants with sufficient seed from each treatment and control were taken to raise independent M2 plant progenies. Five normal looking competitive plants from each M2 progeny were taken randomly to record observations on eight quantitative traits of economic importance, viz. plant height (cm) pod initiation height (cm) number of fruiting branches/plant, number of fruiting pods/plant, 100 seed weight (g) seed yield/plant (g) biomass/plant (g) and harvest index Wider range and mean in both positive and negative directions along with a general positive shift in mean for various polygenic traits than control were observed in different treatments in M2 generation. The variance, GCV and PCV for different polygenic traits increased tremendously over control values in all the treatments of both the cvs. Higher estimates of heritability and genetic advance in the M2 populations indicated tremendous scope for the improvement of seed yield and its component traits following selection in reduced volume of mutagenized material.