Abstract:

In order to study the mutagenic effect of colchicine aqueous solution on sweet sorghum ‘FH59’ seeds and create high-quality sweet sorghum resources, in this experiment, sweet sorghum seeds were soaked in different concentrations of colchicine solution (0.05%, 0.1%, 0.15%, and 0.2%) for 24 h, 31 h and 48 h, respectively, the variation rate at seedling stage was counted, and the survival plants were identified in field. The results showed that the mutagenic effect of colchicine was significantly affected by the treatment time and the concentration of colchicine and their interaction. The best mutagenic effect was obtained under the condition of 0.15% colchicine solution treatment for 24 h, and the mutagenic effect of seedlings was significant. The mutants of plant height, growth period, ear length, grain color, brix and other major agronomic traits were found in the field of M₂ generation, and the variation types were rich. Especially, a large number of dwarfing and early-maturing mutants were found, which had obvious improvement on sweet sorghum parents.

Key words: colchicine, sweet sorghum, mutagenic effect, dwarfing, germplasm resource