ABSTRACT

Effects of radiation on Human, Animals and Plants genomes can never be over emphasized. This study was done to evaluate the mutagenic and growth implications of different doses (6 MGy, 7 MGy, 1 MGy, 2 MGy) of X-ray on three varieties of Capsicum (C. annum [Ose-ofe] C. Frutescens [Ose-nkiri] and C. Frutescens [Langalanga]). The doses used were selected from a pre-growth (Dosimetry) analysis according to the best performed seeds of the plant. After the nursery, the plants were transplanted to the field on a Completely Randomised Block Design (RCBD) layout, which had each treatment replicated three (3) times. The young leafy parts ofthe plants were carefully collected for gene extraction, gel electrophoresis and gene evaluation. The RAPD primers used were found to produce good quality banding patterns; the primers produced multi-band patterns ranging from two-four per samples suggestive of polymorphism compare to other primers used in the experiment. However, in plate 1 the results of RAPD primer OPT-7 indicates that 600bp and 250bp were clearly shown for Spp-A control of sample 1, Spp-A first and Spp-A second exposure of sample 2 and 3 respectively. Accordingly, Spp-B control of sample 4, Spp-B first exposure sample 5 and Spp-C control of sample 7 has both the same 600bp and 250bp while there is absent of 250 bp of sample 6, 8, 9 alleles (Plat: 2).A Dendrogram was constructed by RAPD primers showing the genetic relationships among representative irradiated pepper derived from UPGMA, based on Jaccard’s similarity coefficient. SppACo: Capsicumfrutescens. Five growth parameters were considered for the plants (Plant Height, Root length, Leaf Number Stem girth and Leaf Area). The results show varying values from plant to plant. Plants that received low doses showed strong competition in terms of growth; like in the leafe area of C. annum scores ofthe plants were within the range of 14 - 16 cm2, the leafnumber had at 1 MGy an average of 17 - 20 leaves in strong competition with the control also at the same average. Such flow was seen in plant height with 1 MGy doing better at 18 cm on the average. C. Frutescens [Langalanga] had the control doing clearly better than the exposed one. Example is the plant height ofthe control which was 16 cm while high doses of 6 and 7 MGy had 11 cm respectively as their average growth rate. C. Frutescens [Ose-nkiri] also had its control doing better than the exposed. There was a clear growth rate different between the plant exposed to 2 MGy and 6 MGy. Generally it can be concluded that plants with lower doses ofX-ray did better than those exposed to higher doses. The inconsistent growth pattern agrees with the results ofthe DNA analysis.