Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Üniversitesi Fen ve Mühendislik Bilimleri Dergisi, cilt.6, sa.2, ss.569-579, 2025 (Hakemli Dergi)
Although tea is cultivated only in the Eastern Black Sea region of Türkiye, all tea plantations in the area have been established from seeds since the beginning of tea farming. This has negatively affected both yield and quality. The high level of heterozygosity in tea plants and the presence of self-incompatibility mechanisms prolong breeding efforts. Mutation breeding is used as a fast and practical method to induce genetic variation. In leading teaproducing countries such as China, India, Kenya, and Sri Lanka, commercially important tea cultivars have been developed through mutation breeding. However, no such studies have been conducted in Türkiye. This study aimed to determine the effective mutation dose that can be used to induce variation in tea plants. The research was conducted between 2020 and 2021 at the Tea Research Greenhouse of the Faculty of Agriculture, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University. The plant material used was 3–4-node shoots of the Zihni Derin tea cultivar. These shoots were irradiated with 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 70 Gray (Gy) doses using the “Ob-Servo Sanguis Co-60 Research Irradiator” gamma irradiation device at the Turkish Energy, Nuclear and Mineral Research Agency. Single-node cuttings obtained from the irradiated shoots were planted in a peat-vermiculite mixture. Survival and rooting rates of the tea cuttings exposed to different gamma doses were recorded, and shoot length (mm) was measured in the growing tea seedlings. Survival and rooting rates decreased with increasing radiation dose. Based on a probit regression analysis of shoot length, the “Effective Mutation Dose” for tea was determined to be 11.45 Gy. This study represents the first mutation breeding research on tea in Türkiye and is expected to provide a foundation for future work in this field.