Characteristics of Tobacco and Rice Plants Irradiated with Neutron Beam

Effects of neutron beam irradiation on seed germination, growth and RAPD pattern of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L. cv.; N. plumbaginifolia) and rice (Orya sativa L. cv.) plants were estimated. Seed germination rate was not significantly changed by the neutron beam treatment in both tobacco and rice seeds. And there was no significant differance in growth of the plants by the neutron beam treatment. Interestingly, however, some of morphological changes, including leaf shape (about ), stem color and leaf color were observed in neutron beam treated tobacco plants. In addition, abnormal flower in petal was observed in the neutron beam treated plant. This results indicate that neutron beam is able to use as an effective mutagen in plant mutations. Scorable products from 20 primers were obtained by RAPD analysis in the leaves of the beam irradiated tobacco plants and most of the plants showed the similar band patterns.