Breeding for an ideal plant type in yellow sarson (Brassica rapa L. yellow sarson).

Yield improvement has always been an important objective for plant breeders although seed yield is a complex trait influenced by several component characters. The present paper reports the efforts made to develop lines of yellow sarson with some established morpho-phisiological characters contributing to seed yield. A spontaneous erectophyle multilocular siliqua mutant was first used to transfer this trait into improved breeding lines. Both multilocular and bilocular siliqua types were comparable in seed yield but bilocular types recorded significantly higher number of siliqua per plant while tetralocular types recorded significantly larger number of seeds per siliqua. Erectophyle siliqua orientation was then established to be more productive than other posture like pendant or horizontal. A spontaneous basal branching mutant was then used to transfer this trait into the breeding lines and incorporated lines produced more number of siliqua per plant through increase in number of branches. A spontaneous apetalous mutant was isolated and this trait was transferred to the elite breeding lines. Among different groups waxy multilocular apetalous groups recorded significantly higher seed yield per plant. Thus the long term research efforts established the concept of achieving a high yielding ideotype in yellow sarson through incorporation of some morpho-physical traits following classical breeding.