Effects of Different Doses of Gamma Rays on Seed Germination Characteristics of Balango Shirazi (Lallemantia Royleana)

Balango (Lallemantia royleana), as a medicinal plant, contains a significant amount of effective ingredients. Balango seed has several properties: it is anti-bloating, constipation, dry cough, and asthma to name only a few. With regard to the importance of genetic diversity in plant breeding, induced mutation has been used for diversification. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of gamma rays  doses  (0, 50, 100, 150, 250, 350, 450, 550, 700, and 900 Gy)  on traits related to grains of Balango Shirazi, and also to determine the suitable dose of gamma rays for induced mutation through completely randomized design with four replications. On the basis of variance analysis results, the differences among gamma rays doses were statistically significant for traits such as shoot dry weight, root fresh weight, mean germination time, germination rate, germination variances, germination homogeneity, root length and shoot length. The correlation of germination percentage with traits included germination rate, germination variance, root fresh weight, shoot dry weight. The shoot dry weight was positively significant at 1% probability level. Meanwhile, the correlation of germination percentage with shoot length and root length was not significant. As a conclution, gamma dose of 250 Gy was chosen as a suitable dose in mutation breeding experiment of Balango.