Somaclones regenerated from seed-derived callus culture of a rice cultivar, 'Ilpum', were evaluated for the agronomic and morphological characteristics. A total of 424 plants regenerated and the seeds collected from 297 lines were used for further analysis on morphological and agronomic traits. The results indicated that 21.5% (64 lines) of progenies showed significant differences from the donor cultivar 'Ilpum'. Somaclonal variations were induced leaf character, plant height, grain characters, heading date, and sterility. Among the variants, 8% (24 lines) of sterility, 1.4% (4 lines) of dwarf/semi dwarf, 1.7% (5 lines) of opaque, and 1.3% (4 lines) of leaf-rolling phenotypes were observed. The highest frequency of somaclonal variation was observed on heading date which occupied 9.1% (27 lines) of the entire lines included 6.4% (19 lines) of early heading and 2.7% (8 lines) of late heading. These results suggest that the somaclonal variation will be one of the promising genetic resources due to its wide variation and comparatively high frequency of mutation.

• Young-Hie Park(School of Applied Biosciences, Kyungpook National University)
• Hyun-Suk Lee(School of Applied Biosciences, Kyungpook National University)
• Kyung-Min Kim
• Jae-Keun Sohn(School of Applied Biosciences, Kyungpook National University) Corresponding author