Varietal improvement of mungbean and blackgram through mutation breeding II

This report is in continuation of the one submitted to the Second Research Co-ordination Meeting in Chiangmai, Thailand, 1981. Three generations of mungbean, M5 to M7 and one of blackgram M4 were obtained. Of the breeding objectives outlined at the beginning, for mungbean seed size, earliness and yield were achieved. In blackgram, only earlier maturity was found. More emphasis was given to mungbean in the hope that it might contribute to success in a large scale production in future. A mutation breeding programme on mungbean and blackgram was initiated in 1979 to supplement the conventional breeding programme. Seeds of the mungbean variety U-Thong 1 and the blackgram variety U-Thong 2, were gamma irradiated. Details and earlier results have been reported before, further results are here