Gamma rays effect on inducing semi dwarf mutants with good quality, in the local durum wheat variety Hamari

Semi-dwarf mutant lines obtained through irradiating seeds of Triticum durum Var. Hamari with 150 Gy from a Co60 source, were analyzed by Nearest Neighbour Analysis and shown to be better in their yield than the recently released durum wheat varieties Sham 3 and Buhuth 1 and also better than some of the ICARDA advanced lines OR5, OR9, and OR17 when tested under semi-arid conditions. Multiple selection pressures for yield and quality characters led to identifying some mutants that performed better than all recently released varieties in all locations under study except for Daki in Izraa location. These results need to be confirmed for several more years with increasing plot areas and location numbers. (author)