2018, Vol. 6, Issue 4, Part C

author(s)
Tsegay Radae

abstract
Sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) is considered to be an ancient oil seed crop to generate high quality edible oil having nutritional and health related value but still at an early stage inbreeding. Its chromosome number is 2n=26 and it belongs to the Pedaliaceae family and having significant economic value globally as well as in Ethiopia. In general terms Sesame is unimproved and variety of collections which have been generated of land races, with little or no genetic information that can lead to its application in breeding programs. With the objective of improving the performance of sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) by the utilization of mutagenesis using sodium azide, an experiment was conducted. In this experiment, healthy and dry seeds of sesame (Sesamum indicum L.), were treated with sodium azide in ascending mutagen concentrations of 0.0165, 0.033, 0.0625, 0.125, and 0.25% targeted at determining the effects of the chemical mutagens to promote genetic variability in terms of the agro morphological parameters of sesame following the appropriate procedures. A gradual decrease was observed in mean root length percentage with increasing concentrations. Reduction in seed germination was observed at 0.0625% concentration in T3 when compared with control and the other treatments but it was increased again in T4 and T5. Root growth was high in the control and in 0.0165% and 0.033% concentrations, when compared to the higher concentration treated plants. This revealed that the reduction in seed germination, root length and shoot length percentage was associated with the increase in the dose/concentration of mutagens even if it shows some increasing in seed germination in T4 and T5. Since the produced mutants from first generation are not adequate for studying the genetic stability these traits should be investigated for the desired traits in subsequent generations and in the field conditions, developing sesame varieties resistant for different biotic and abiotic stresses and assisting the present work with the recent bio-molecular techniques should be future prospects.