Breeding for an ideal plant type in yellow sarson (Brassica rapa L. yellow sarson)

Abstract

Yield improvement has always been an important objective for plant breeders although seed yield is a complex trait influencedby several component characters. The present paper reports the efforts made to develop lines of yellow sarson with someestablished morpho-phisiological characters contributing to seed yield. A spontaneous erectophyle multilocular siliqua mutantwas first used to transfer this trait into improved breeding lines. Both multilocular and bilocular siliqua types were comparablein seed yield but bilocular types recorded significantly higher number of siliqua per plant while tetralocular types recordedsignificantly larger number of seeds per siliqua. Erectophyle siliqua orientation was then established to be more productive thanother posture like pendant or horizontal. A spontaneous basal branching mutant was then used to transfer this trait into thebreeding lines and incorporated lines produced more number of siliqua per plant through increase in number of branches. Aspontaneous apetalous mutant was isolated and this trait was transferred to the elite breeding lines. Among different groupswaxy multilocular apetalous groups recorded significantly higher seed yield per plant. Thus the long term research effortsestablished the concept of achieving a high yielding ideotype in yellow sarson through incorporation of some morpho-physicaltraits following classical breeding.

Keywords

• Yellow sarson
• ideal plant type