Generating new ornamental plant varieties using ion beams

Zaiton, A.*; Affrida, A. H.*; Shakinah, S.*; Nozawa, Shigeki; Narumi, Issei; Hase, Yoshihiro; Ono, Yutaka

Chrysanthemum is one of the leading cut flowers in Malaysia's cut flower industry. Due to the increasing demand of chrysanthemum cut flower, there is a need for new variety of chrysanthemum in order to compete to the ever-competitive cut flower market. Induced mutation breeding using ionizing radiation is one of the effective methods in plant breeding that resulted in generation of new mutated alleles and most unique feature. Attempt was carried out to apply mutation breeding technique using ion beam radiation to produce new variety of chrysanthemum. A pink variety of was used in this experiment. The experiment will be repeated to determine the accurate optimum irradiation dose for this variety. Meanwhile all shoots regenerated after irradiation are being sub-cultured and will be planted in the nursery.