Influence of different doses of gamma radiation (Cobalt 60) in soybean Glycine max (L.) aiming the increase in the productivity

Soybean cultivation is of great economic importance worldwide and particularly for Brazil. There are several researches aimed at increasing productivity and quality of this crop, such as breeding and genetic changes of cultivars. Several studies have shown that ionizing irradiation can increase plant production, thus emerging as an alternative method to increase the production of economically important crops. The objective of this study was to test several doses of ionizing radiation, varying from 10 Gy to 150 Gy, in order to observe which of them could develop beneficial characteristics, such as increased in productivity and oil quality. The work was developed during three years, being part of them in the field and another part in greenhouse. The genotoxic potential and the oil quality of the grains produced by individuals from these irradiated seeds were also evaluated. In the field several parameters related to the plant development were observed, and none of these parameters presented significant differences according to the statistical tests applied. Regarding the increase in productivity, we can conclude that there was a significant difference between the values of yield of the control and the irradiated seeds with dose of 25 Gy, with an increase of 97.97%. In the protected environment, the effects of radiation stimulation on germination and production were evaluated, and the results indicated that the treatments with doses of 12.5; 25; 50 and 75 Gy presented a statistically significant difference when compared to other treatments, but among them the values were similar. In the determination of the genotoxic potential, evaluated by the A. cepa test, soybean oil samples from irradiated seeds showed no genotoxic nor cytotoxic activity. It is also possible to conclude that the oil obtained from irradiated seeds individuals did not present a difference compared to oil obtained from seeds of non-irradiated individuals, where it was possible to compare the values of the indexes referring to acidity, saponification, refraction and iodine rate, in addition to the proof that these positive doses generated clean products free of genotoxic characteristics. (author)