Artemisia annua L.is an important medicinal plant from which artemisinin was extracted to treat malaria effectively.Artemisinin is isolated from the aerial part of the A.annua harvesting from the wild is causing loss of genetic diversity and habitat destruction.The use of controlled environments can overcome cultivation difficulties and could be a means to manipulate phenotypic variation in bioactive compounds and toxins.Induced mutations have great potentials and serve as a complimentary approach in genetic improvement of crops for greater yield and quality traits[1].The generation of genetic variability by induced mutagenesis provides a base for strengthening plant improvement programs[2].For any mutation-breeding program,selection of effective and efficient mutagen is very essential to recover high frequency of desirable mutations[3].The mutagenesis approach is attractive alternate method for enhancement of artemisinin in vivo as well as in vitro.The results of many studies showed that mutation breeding has the capacity to release mutants with high artemisinin content[4].
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