Effects of EMS treatment on the seed germination in wheat

The aim of this study was to identify the effects of different percentages of Ethyl-methane Sulphonate (EMS) mutagen on the seed germination, root and shoot growth so that the most effective EMS dose can be applied for successful mutagenesis research studies like TILLING. For this purpose, the seeds of “Gerek-79” bread wheat cultivar were treated with 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3% EMS doses. Seed germination, coleoptyl existing, first leaf existing, embryonic root length, coleoptyl length, seedling length, seedling growth rate, first leaf length, fresh and dry weights of root and shoot, and root to shoot ratio were evaluated in comparison to the untreated materials. Mostly, there were statistically significant differences among EMS treatments for all the evaluated characters. The levels of differences were more pronounced with the increased doses of EMS. Thus, the selected characters evaluated in this study are relevant for the assessment of effective and optimum EMS treatments. In this way, M1 plants can be selected at early stages of growth based on the indicator characteristics of the EMS mutagen treatments to elicit the best response prior to the large scale mutant production for later experiments.

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