Mutation breeding as a tool for improving plant characters: A review

Identifying plants with desirable traits among existing plant varieties is the initial and most important step in plant breeding. Plant breeding requires the genetic variation of useful traits for crop improvement or crop betterment. The plant breeding depends upon the genetic variation. In nature, variation occurs mainly as a result of mutation and without it, plant breeding would be impossible. Mutation as a mechanism of creating variability was identified by Hugo de Vries while experimenting on the rediscovery of Mendel’s Law of Inheritance.17 Mutation arises in two ways; First, spontaneous mutation which occurs without treatment of the organism with an exogenous mutagen and secondly induced mutation which occurs due to the treatment of a plant or plant parts such as seed, stem, cuttings, pollen and ovules with the help of mutagens. The purposeful employment of the induced mutation for crop improvement is known as mutation breeding. The mutation breeding is also known as the variation breeding.There are mainly two types of mutagens (agent to cause mutation) i.e. physical and chemical mutagens. The mutant shows higher potential for improving plant architecture leading to better crop improvement and used as complementary and rational tool in plant breeding. Mutation breeding programme should be clearly planned and should be large enough with sufficient facilities to screen large population in short time. This review highlights the role of mutation breeding in improvement of qualitative and quantitative characters of crop plant.