Sorghum is one of the most important cereal crops grown in the world for human consumption, animal feed and bio-energy. The objective of the study was to estimate the genetic variability, heritability and genetic gain of some agro-physiological traits of 98 sorghum accessions in South Africa. The studies were conducted at Makhathini in KwaZulu-Natal and Burgershall in Mpumalanga provinces. The experiments were laid out in an alpha lattice design replicated twice. The plant height, panicle length, panicle width and panicle exsertion, rachis number, panicle weight, thousand seed weight, and grain yield per panicle were recorded. The data were subjected to analysis of variance using generalised linear model and means were separated using Duncan Multiple Range Test. Coefficients of variation were also determined. There were significant differences among the traits measured. Plant height was significant and positively associated with panicle length (r =0.139), panicle width (r = 0.127) and panicle weight (r = 0.1457). Panicle exsertion was highly significant and negatively correlated with all other traits except with plant height. The Principal Component analysis revealed three most important PCs contributing a total variation of 92.36%. The PC1, PC2, and PC3 contributed 42.53, 34.65 and 15.18%, respectively. Low, medium and high estimates of broad sense heritability were found in different plant characters under study. Highest heritability estimates were found in plant height, thousand seed weight, panicle length and rachis number. Values of genetic advance ranged between 0.39 to 17655.04 and the genetic gain (of the mean percent) ranged from 3.27 to 372.52. Greater magnitude of broad sense heritability coupled with higher genetic advance in traits studied provided the evidence that these were under the control of additive genetic effects indicating that selection in the germplasm should lead to a fast improvement of the traits.

/pdf/genetic-variability-heritability-and-genetic-gain-for-1x8nysmz5i.pdf

Genetic variability, heritability and genetic gain for quantitative traits in South African sorghum genotypes.

The sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) plant has been grown for food and fodder purpose throughout the
world. Being a plant of African origin it is mostly cultivated in the northern hemisphere. Sorghum bicolor plays
pivotal role as a food crop for millions of tenants in the semi-arid tropic temperate regions of Asia and Africa.
Sorghum has become one of the most imperative crops in Pakistan as a multicup crop. In this review article, our
main focus was to highlight starring role of studying heritability, genotypic and phenotypic association, and their direct and indirect effects along with the part sorghum plays in economy as a green fodder.

How to improve Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench production: An Overview

The paper investigated the production properties of three sorghum genotypes:
 NS-Džin (forage sorghum), Zora (Sudan grass) and Siloking (interspecies
 hybrid) in terms of different nitrogen rates used in side dressing in 2009
 and 2010. The subject of study was green biomass and dry matter yield in the
 stages of intensive growth and tasseling. The results have shown that there
 have been significant fluctuations in production indicators between the
 genotypes. In the total average, the lowest yield was recorded for the Sudan
 grass (85.41 t ha-1). Significantly higher yields were recorded for the
 interspecies hybrid (90.22 t ha-1) and the forage sorghum (93.51 t ha-1).
 Although the effect of nitrogen rates depended on weather conditions, i.e.
 rainfall distribution, the optimal nitrogen rate in both years was 180 kg
 ha-1. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. TR-31078]

/pdf/the-effect-of-nitrogen-fertilizer-rates-on-green-biomass-and-13z9ff5qrc.pdf

THE EFFECT OF NITROGEN FERTILIZER RATES ON GREEN BIOMASS AND DRY MATTER YIELD OF Sorghum sp. AT DIFFERENT GROWTH STAGES

: Low nutritional quality and protein digestibility of the seed are the most important directions of genetic improvement of sorghum. in this review, i summarize breeding methods and efforts made for quality improvement of sorghum. today, grain quality became an important criterion in sorghum breeding. Sorghum is principal source of energy, proteins, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and phenolic compounds beneficial to health. however, the nutritional quality of sorghum is poor mainly due to the predominance of storage proteins called kafirins. the protein content and the amino acid composition vary due to genotype and environmental conditions. sorghum contains high genetic variation for traits influencing grain quality .identification and effective characterization genes influencing quality would help sorghum breeders to develop new quality product. The studies shown us, no major antagonism between quality traits and yield, suggesting that it is possible to combine the desirable traits to breed for high yield varieties with satisfactory grain quality attributes. Attempts were made to improve sorghum grain quality, mineral content and kafrin digestibility through genetic engineering and mutation breeding but information on the use of classical breeding methods to improve sorghum grain quality is still limited.

Review On Breeding Sorghum (Sorghum Bicolor (L.) Moench) for Nutritional Quality Improvement

Sorghum is a Poaceae family plant that produces a lot of hay. A field experiment was carried out at the University of Thessaly’s experimental farm to investigate the hay yield and quality characteristics of six different sorghum varieties (V1: Buffalo grain, V2: Elite, V3: Big Kahuna, V4: 25K1009, V5: 4264, and V6: 5D61) under different nitrogen fertilization levels (N1: 0, N2: 80, N3: 160, and N4: 240 kg ha−1, using urinary ammonia 40-0-0). Pea for silage production was established in the same field prior to sorghum cultivation. Hay yield was found to differ significantly between the tested varieties and was also influenced by nitrogen fertilizer. Nitrogen fertilization has a statistically significant effect on sorghum production, with a higher nitrogen supply contributing to a higher protein content in the sorghum yield. Other hay quality indicators, such as ash, NDF, and ADF, demonstrated differences between the different varieties and nitrogen fertilizer levels. According to the study, the variety that had stable output was “Elite”, which had good quality attributes and could be used as an alternative to feed production before sorghum development.

/pdf/assessing-the-efficiency-of-different-nitrogen-fertilization-g39lunx4.pdf

Assessing the Efficiency of Different Nitrogen Fertilization Levels on Sorghum Yield and Quality Characteristics

Objective of the research were phenotypic and genetic correlation
 coefficients of three species of Sorghum genus - forage sorghum S. bicolor
 Moench. (genotype NS-Džin), Sudan grass S. sudanense L. (genotype Zora) and
 interspecies hybrid S. bicolor x S. sudanense (genotype Siloking). Studies
 were carried out on samples of plant material from the first cut. The
 following morphological-productive traits were studied: plant height, number
 of leaves per plant, mass of leaves on the stem, average stem mass and yield
 of green biomass. In the analysis of genetic and phenotypic coefficients,
 differences depending on the impact on studied morphological-productive
 traits are observed. The highest value of the stem height was recorded in
 Sudan grass (2.281 m), as well as number of leaves per plants (7.917). The
 greatest mass of leaves per plant was established in forage sorghum (49.05
 g), and the highest average stem mass was recorded in interspecies hybrid
 plants (80.798 g). Variation of morphological-productive indicators per
 species was significant and very significant. Coefficients of simple
 correlations indicate the presence of very strong to almost complete,
 statistically very significant positive correlations, so these effects were
 expected. Plant height and number of leaves were not directly but indirectly
 statistically significant to yield of green biomass and varied from
 insignificant and very weak to sporadically medium strong and statistically
 significant. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. TR 31078]

/pdf/correlation-coefficients-of-morphological-productive-traits-295grfkn39.pdf

Z. Lakic

Papers

Correlation coefficients of morphological - productive traits of species of Sorghum genus.