Effect of Gamma-ray on Survival and Mutation Rates of Rooted Cuttings and Unrooted Cuttings in Rose

Abstract

This study was carried out to compare the survival and mutation rates and mutation spectrum by gamma-irradiation on rooted and unrooted cuttings of three spray type (‘Lovelydia’, ‘Yellowbabe’, and ‘Haetsal’) and two standard type (‘Vital’ and ‘Aqua’) cultivars in roses. Two groups, rooted and unrooted cuttings were gamma-irradiated at 70Gy for 24 hours. The irradiated rooted and unrooted cuttings were planted in a greenhouse, and survival, mutation rates and mutation spectrum were investigated 30 weeks after planting, respectively. As a result, survival and mutation rates of gamma-ray irradiated plants were 16.4%~50.8% and 0~5.1% for unrooted cuttings, and 39.4%~55.1% and 0.7%~7.4% for rooted cuttings, respectively. In conclusion, both survival and mutation rates were a little higher on rooted cuttings than on unrooted cuttings. However, when only survived plants after gamma-ray irradiation were considered, mutation rates were 0~10% and 1.8%~14.1% for unrooted cuttings and rooted cuttings, respectively, showing no significant difference. In addition, diverse variations on color and number of petals or shape of flowers were detected both in plants from rooted and unrooted cuttings, which indicated that there was no significant difference in mutation spectrum between two groups.