Ncert Exercises & Solutions

Q.27 Can gamma rays used for crop improvement programmes prove to be harmful for health?

Discuss.

No radiation treatment has been used to create thousands of new plant varieties. These

varieties are cultivated as food and feed. Radiation is known to be much more disruptive

for chromosomal structure than the manipulations used to make transgenic plants.

Such radiation treatrnent of crop plants has caused no documented instances of ill-health

among consumers despite having been used commercially for several decades.

For rice crops alone, hundreds of different mutant varieties have been developed mostly

made by using ionising radiations, like gamma rays.