Enhancing growth rate of lettuce by mutating lettuce seeds with nuclear irradiation

To improve growth rate of hydroponics lettuce with CO_(2)aeration,lettuce seeds were mutated by nuclear irradiation(c rays from^(137)Cs)and domesticated with high concentration of CO_(2).When lettuce seeds were mutated with 30 Gy dosage,wet weight of lettuce increased by 22.3%(to 52.24 g)on the 30th day and grana volume in the chloroplasts of leaf cells increased by 244%.After the mutant(irradiated by 50 Gy dosage)was domesticated with elevated CO_(2)concentration,wet weight of lettuce increased by 74.6%(to 48.7 g)on the 24th day under 3 vol%CO_(2),compared with wet weight of lettuce under air condition.Results showed that mutagenesis by nuclear irradiation made it possible to improve CO_(2)fixation rate in lettuce in a gene-modified way.