Maize mutants a boon to society in past and in future what...?

Any altered plant phenotypic expression is a variation that may be desirable or undesirable. Mutants form one such class which has been exploited in past and have role to play in future. One of the aspects in utilizing the worth of mutants is conversion of normal maize into quality protein maize (QPM). In the current investigation we have found a number of plants in the BC2F1 populations whose phenotypic expression were different from normal plants. The most susceptible population was BC2F1/11 where frequencies of altered phenotypes were maximum (42.42 %) whereas minimum of 2.08 % plants were noted with altered phenotypes in BC2F1/2. Further, altered plant phenotypes were grouped according to their similarity to identify the severe type phenotypic alteration. Based on grouping, cob at top without tassel was identified to be the most frequent one with 25 plants showing such types of phenotypic alteration. The unusual phenotypes found minimum was one each in earless, tasseless with cob cluster, branched and cob and tassel together at top mutants.