Effect of Chemical Mutagenesis by EMS on some morphological,physiological and productive traits of Soybean(Glycine max (L.) Merr)

Abstract

Plant breeding programs aim to obtain plants with desirable characteristics in terms of productivity, which has economical benefits. Chemical mutagenesis is one of the methods which is used in this process. The effect of several concentrations of EMS (0.1-1% for 4 hours) on some morphological, physiological and productive traits of the soybean (cultivated in the greenhouse in 2021) was studied in this research, the results showed the increasing EMS concentration increased mutations rate, especially in leaf morphological traits (color, number of pinnule, pinnule fusion, pinnule shape, presence of wrinkle, presence of mottled). In addition, there are positive and negative changes in some morphological, physiological and productive traits: germination percent (%), elongation speed (%), number of leaves per plant, number of flowers per plant, number of (pods) per plant, number of seeds per pod, number of seeds per plant, weight of 100 seeds (g). The highest mutations rate and germination percentages were obtained by 0.7% of EMS. These results confirm the role of induced mutations –especially by chemical means- to accelerate the obtention of useful genetic variations (productively and economically).