Morphological Changes of Capsicum annuum L. Induced by Ethyl Methanesulfonate (EMS) at M2 Generation

The objective of this study was to identify morphological variation in M2 plants of Capsicum annuum derived from seed treated with ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS). The M1 generation was developed by treated seed with 0.5%, 0.75% and 1% EMS in phosphate buffer pH 7.0 for 6 hours. Seedlings of M1 were planted in the field and seeds resulted from M1 plants were harvested and planted for morphological analysis. Plants were planted in polybag in progeny row system. Results showed that there was a decrease in both seedling emergence and plant survival due to EMS treatments. Several morphological variations were observed in plant height, leaf size, pattern of the branch, number of main stems and petal number of the flower. In the M2 generation, treatment of 1% EMS generated tall plant, small plant with pale green leaf colour, dwarf plant mutant and plant with two stems. The 0.75% EMS resulted in the short mutant with many branches while 0.5% EMS produced plant with pale green leaf colour. These results indicated that EMS mutagenesis in C. annuum generated interesting morphological characters that differ to control plants which can be used in C. annuum improvement program.