Journal of Crop Breeding

Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L.) is the only vegetable crop of significance among Malvaceae family and is commonly cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Mutation induction has been accepted as a useful tool in plant breeding programs to provide maximum inheritable variability. To investigate the effects of Ethyl Methane Sulfonate (EMS) on variation induction on agronomic traits of okra, a factorial experiment was conducted based on a completely randomized design with four replications at three EMS concentration levels (0.175%, 0.350% and 0.525%) and two time period (18 and 24 h). In the M₁ generation, agronomic traits were recorded including plant height, pod number/plant, pod length, pod diameter, stem thickness, seed number/pod, pod weight, number of locules and 100 seed weight. Analysis of variance showed that EMS concentrations were significant at the 5% level for seed number/pod and pod weight, number of locules and were significant for plant height, pod diameter, stem thickness and 100 seed weight at the 1% probability level. The treatment duration was significant (𝑃&le0.05) for plant height, pod length, pod diameter and seed number/pod. Due to the used doses, application of EMS lead to increase or decrease in plant height, pod number/plant, pod length, pod diameter, stem thickness, seed number/pod, pod weight, number of locules and 100 seed weight in okra. These results indicating that EMS could greatly affect the most studied characters in M₁ generation which it would increase the efficiency of breeding objectives.