In Pakistan after wheat and rice maize is the third most important cereal. It is staple food in many countries of the world. . It is grown from latitude 58° north to 40° South with annual rain fall ranging from 250 to 5000 mm. The temperature between 25 to 28°C is optimum for germination of maize. About 70% of total production of maize is used as fodder and animal feed while 30% is used by humans in different forms. The experiment material comprised of maize variety Sultan treated with four gamma irr adiation doses which are 20, 40, 60 and 80 Gray. Dry seeds were treated with above mentioned doses of gamma rays at Nuclear Institute of Agriculture and Biology Faisalabad, using Cobalt-60 as a source. Seeds were dibbled in the field. Experiment was laid out in r andomized complete block design, with two replications. Observations on all plants were recorded on individual plant basis for agronomic an d physiological characteristics i.e. plant height, days to tasselling, days to silking, tassel length, number of leaves per plant, number of cobs per plant, cob length, number of grains per cob , days to maturity, leaf area, chlorophyll “a”, chlorophyll ”b” and carotenoid. The results showed that morphological and physiological traits of maize could be improved by using gamma radiation. Gamma radiations were found to be good source for creating variation which are helpful in crop improvement programme.
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