Mutation Breeding: A Tool in Nutritional Improvement of Cassava

Abstract

Cassava is an important food security crop worldwide with a lot of unexploited potential. More than 60% of global production is used for human consumption, while lesser quantity is used in livestock and Pharmacia industries. Improvement through hybridization and selection have been exploited but is limited by inter-specific and intra generic crop boundary, irregular flowering and low spontaneous muta¬tion rate which cannot be depended on considering the high demand on the crop. Induce mutations has continue to remain an alternative tool for cassava improvement. The cytology analysis carried on five cassava varieties using varying levels of colchi¬cine showed that the mutagen has significant aberration effect at (p < 0.05), with a Mitotic Index (MI) of (132.14), an error in cell divisions as shown in the positive increase yield of both parents and progeny of the cassava varieties evalu¬ated. An epidermal-polyploidy change induced includes laggard, bridges, fragments, stickiness, vagrant and crises-cross at various concentrations. A required aberration was observed in the result. This shows significant difference in the mitotic index in a decreasing order with an increase in level of mutagen (132.14, 65.21 and 42.60) respectively. This result showed the mutagenic potentialities of colchicine in cassava induction and improvement.