ЭлБиб

USE OF EXPERIMENTAL MUTAGENESIS IN BREEDING OF SEA BUCKTHORN

(HIPPOPHAE RHAMNOIDES L.)

G.F. Privalov, L.P. Solonenko

Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences,

Novosibirsk

One of the tasks imposed by the plant breeding is combination in one cultivar of

traits of resistance to unfavourable environmental conditions and traits considerably

influencing fruitfulness and its quality. The former traits as a rule are controlled by

dominant genes and the latter by the recessive ones.

Although sea buckthorn natural cultivars with recessive traits in homozygous state

have not been used out yet, their experimental production throughout induced mutagenesis

becomes more and more of current concern. In the last decade geneticists and plant

breeders have exerted a lot of efforts to elaborate efficient techniques for the control of

induced plant mutability with use of various mutagenic factors. Such techniques have been

developed and are being successfully applied to obtain new varieties of diverse agricultural

plants. Results accumulated throughout these works allowed to make up a manual on

methods of ionising radiation and chemical mutagenesis in mutational plant breeding.

According to data by FAO/IAAE for the last 25 years in different countries with

application of induced mutations in plant breeding there have been created 1200 plant

varieties. About a half of them were developed via direct breeding and selection of plants

directly from induced mutants and the others - via the use of mutants in different crosses.

Mutant cultivars are characterised by one or more improved traits, i.e. increased fruit

capacity, early maturing, improved quality and technological features of yield, resistance to

unfavourable environmental factors and others.

The range of induced mutations in sea buckthorn generally is the same as for

spontaneous variability in plants in natural populations. Yet, too few experiments on

induced mutagenesis in sea buckthorn were performed to draw a final conclusion on this

subject. There were no sufficiently studied mutations appearing under diverse natural habitat

conditions of sea buckthorn, their adaptability to specific and non-specific conditions of

growing, dependence on height above sea level and saltiness of soil and air along lake and

sea shores and so on. That requires detailed field researches and significantly extended

works in breeding and controlled crosses. The advantage of the method of induced

mutagenesis is that even when working with a strictly limited amount of initial material due

to sharply increased mutability of the latter, it is possible not only to obtain mutations that

are rarely reported in nature, i.e. breeding the rigorous of natural selection, but also to

induce new mutations meeting requirements of agricultural fruit-growing. The rate and the

range of induced mutations are dependable of many factors to take into account in plant

breeding programs.

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