MUTATION BREEDING IN CITRUS- A REVIEW

Citrus is the main fruit crop in the world and third most important fruit crop in India; the long history of Citriculture and richness of germplasm has benefited genetics and breeding research. Among the various genetic improvement tools, mutation is also one among widely used. Despite, fact that citrus breeding is very challenging, different breeding programs throughout the world have made significant progress in the application of mutation and biotechnological approaches to genetic improvement and cultivar development. In Citrus, spontaneous mutants/chimeras and induced mutants are also exist and they are under commercial cultivation. The major challenge in the mutation breeding goals at present in citrus includes development of seedless varieties, thorn less, quality improvement and early or late bearing varieties. The major bottleneck for disease resistant in citrus breeding is due to inadequate and lengthy breeding procedures. However, non-conventional methods, such as mutation breeding and other novel approaches can be utilised for the production of biotic and abiotic stress tolerant/ resistant germplasm. Several efforts have been made for the development of new mutant cultivars for various traits in citrus has been collected and compiled in this review.