Effects of gamma ray irradiation and NaCl on induced somaclonal variation in Arnavutköy strawberry cultivar

Salinity stress impacts the growth and development of strawberry crop significantly in tropical and temperate regions across the world developing somaclonal variant which offers an option to develop salt stress tolerant genotypes. Somaclonal variants of Arnavutköy strawberry cultivar were produced via organogenesis by irradiating axillary shoots with gamma rays (20 and 40 Gy with ⁶⁰Co) along with imposing different NaCl concentrations (0, 250, 500, and 750 ppm). Increasing total doses of ⁶⁰Co together with NaCl concentrations significantly affected the percentage of survival rate, axillary shoots proliferation, length of axillary shoots, fresh weight of axillary shoots, leaf deformation scores and necrotic area of leaves. The variants with less deformation were selected for strawberry breeding. A gamma irradiation dose of 40 Gy was found to be the most effective dose together with 500 ppm of NaCl for to obtain the somaclonal variants without having much lethal effects and deformations of the strawberry breeding in vitro condition. If successfully applied, this methodology can lead to the identification of new strawberry cultivars resistant to NaCl within a relatively short period of time.