Abstract:Since 1928, induced mutations have played a very significant role in solving world food and nutritional security problems through mutant germplasm enhancement and new mutant variety development. According to incomplete statistics, up to September 2009, induced mutations have officially released 3088 mutant cultivars in more than 170 crop species by more than 60 countries in the world. China tanks the first in the world, which has released 802 mutant cultivars in 45 crop species, and takes more than a quarter of the total number of mutant variety in the FAO/IAEA database. The maximum annually accumulated planting area of the mutant varieties was 9 million hectares, with an additional increase of 1.5 billion kilograms to national output of grain, cotton, oil, being converted to social and economic benefits of more than 2 billion RMB. The recent development and application of accelerator ion beam irradiation, the spaceflight environment and the other new mutation means, as well as the effective use of traditional radiation mutagenesis are becoming more active in crop improvement and new gene discovery. The advent of plant genomics and high throughput DNA techniques, such as TILLING have opened a new era in molecular mutation breeding technique that will overcome the limitations of conventional mutation breeding and play a significant role in solving China and world food security.