THE DEPENDENCE OF GENETIC-EFFECTS ON THE DOSE OF BETA-RADIATION IN HORDEUM-DISTICHUM L PLANTS GROWN UNDER RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION

Experiments on contamination of Hordeum distichum L. plants with Y-90 and Sr-90 radionuclides are performed to analyze the relationship betw een radiobiological and genetic effects over a wide range of radioacti ve contamination densities and absorbed doses of beta-radiation (0.05- 60 Gy). It is shown that radiobiological criteria (growth rate, variat ion in quantitative traits, sterility, survival rate, and yield) can b e used for testing radiation injury in barley at doses above 4 Gy and a dose rate of 0.5 cGy/h with a high degree of significance. The depen dence of meiotic and mitotic cytogenetic effects on the dose of beta-r adiation is superlinear at low dose range. This is a reliable criterio n for testing the effects of beta-radiation at a dose and rate of 0.6 Gy and 0.1 cGy/h, respectively.