Germination and Seedling Growth in Response to Ionizing Radiation in Creeping Bentgrass (Agrostis palustris Huds.)

Abstract

It was previously pointed out that mutation is the ultimate source of variation. Adequate variation is needed for plant breeding if there is a limitation in natural genetic resources. When the ionizing radiation has been known to cause chromosomal and genomic alternations, it is widely used for inducing mutagenesis. The electron beam as an ionizing radiation is the principal physical mutagens that induces mutation and effectively used in plant breeding. Since dose-response relationships of electron beam in plant species are rarely known, we investigated the seed germination rate and early seedling growth of irradiated seeds of creeping bentgrass (Agrostis palustris Huds., cv Penn-A1) with various electron beam irradiating conditions (1, 1.3, 2 MeV at both 0.03 mA and 0.06 mA with dose of 100 Gy (Gray) and 0.03, 1, 1.3, 2 MeV at 0.03 mA with dose of 200 Gy, respectively) using electron accelerator at Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. The growth parameters in terms of shoot length, primary root length, and secondary root length showed similar response between 0.06 / 1 (mA / MeV) at 100 Gy and 0.03 / 0.3 (mA / MeV) at 200 Gy. Bentgrass seed germination was mainly affected by the intensity of irradiated dose (Gray). Germination rate was lowered as the irradiated dose increased. On the other hand, early seedling growth was mainly governed not by the dose of radiation but by voltage.