ELICITATION OF HIGH-QUALITY AND YIELD IN BREAD WHEAT (TRITICUM AESTIVUM L.) MUTANT LINES IMPROVED BY GAMMA RAYS

The study was carried out to assess quality traits and grain yield of bread wheat mutant lines using an augmented experimental design in the 2014-2015 growing season. Considering the results of the experiment, large variations were noted between the means of mutant lines for PC (12.49-16.24%), ZSV (25.55-59.05 mL), WGC (26.76-39.06%), AE (227.3-343.3 10^-4 joule), QI (2.104-4.196), TGW (34.1-55.9 g), TW (75.94-83.04 kg hl^-1) and GY (4712-9715 kg ha^-1). The 15 lines for GPC, 16 lines for ZSV, 13 lines for WGC, 15 lines for AE, 18 lines for QI, 30 lines for TGW, 11 lines for TW and 10 lines for GY have been found to perform compared to the parents. On the results of the quality traits, MT8, MT4, MT5, MT6, MT23, MT24, MT25, MT41, MT50 and MT51 were the best quality mutant lines for protein amount and quality, while the mutant lines with the best performance for grain yield were MT53, MT14, MT20, MT33, MT35, and MT19. By evaluating the research results together, it was determined that the mutant lines MT53, MT14, MT35 and MT11 had the best grain yield and quality performances. The better performances of mutant lines derived from generally well-adapted commercial parental genotypes indicate that they are the appropriate source material for mutation breeding. The mutant lines (MT53, MT14, MT35, MT20, MT33, MT11 and MT19) were selected for yield trials, and the high quality mutant lines were added to the genetic stock to be used for wheat quality improvement.