Genetic Improvement of Vegetatively Propagated Mulberry Cultivars

Sericulture is one of the important employment generating agrarian sectors and provide considerable returns to the farming community throughout the year. This occupation involves minimum investment and high profitability with low gestation period. Mulberry, silkworm and silk are the main components and involve interdependence on each other. Mulberry is an outstanding bio-energy food plant and its growth and development depends on interaction with abiotic factors. Several species of mulberry are available in nature and all are not viable due to lack of one or the other important traits from the point of silkworm rearing. Evolving new varieties of mulberry is need of the hour and mutation and polyploidy breeding though non-conventional in nature proved to be very useful to the mulberry breeders to induce variation in mulberry. Gamma ray irradiation is one of the important tool to induce beneficial variants in mulberry plants with wide array of traits. Colchicine is a polyploidizing agent induces morphological variations in mulberry. Colchiploidy is a common phenomenon, specially triploids are highly nutritious from the point of silkworm palatability.