Development of new vegetable soybean (Glycine max L. Merill) mutants with high protein and less fibre content

Soybean (Glycine max L. Merill) tops the world production of oil seeds. Mutation breeding is the most useful and vital technology for soybean. Selection of effective and efficient mutagens are very essential to recover high frequency of desirable mutants. The seed material of vegetable soybean cultivars viz., Himso 1563 and TS 82 were used for study. Gamma rays and EMS are the two mutagens selected for mutagenesis. Mutated population had manifested a reduced expression than the untreated population for all biometrical traits. Reduction in phenotypic expression is linear with the dose or concentration of the mutagens in the M1 generation. Higher the dose or concentration more reduction in the expressivity of the traits. Viable mutants were observed in the M2 generation. Induced mutations delivered fairly good amount of genotypic coefficient of variation, the heritability and GA as per cent of mean with respect to all the biometrical observations. High protein content (Himso 1563-37.73 and TS 82-39.49 percent) and low fibre content (Himso 1563 - 7.27 and TS 82-10.55 percent) mutants identified in M2 generation.