EFFECTS OF ATRAZINE ON CHROMOSOMAL BEHAVIOR IN SORGHUM

Abstract
A widely used chemical herbicide, atrazine (2-chloro-4-ethylamino-6-isopropyl amino-s-triazine), applied to sorghum plants, induced numerical and structural chromosome abnormalities in microsporocytes during meiosis. Results were the same in plants treated at seven growth stages at a normal rate (2.8 kg/ha, equivalent to 2.5 1b/acre). Aberrant cells contained extra pairs of chromosomes, ranging from a few extra pairs to more than ten times as many. Apparently some of the microsporogenous cells failed to undergo cytokinesis, though chromosome division was uninhibited.