Decades of documented successful pieces of evidence in agritech have shown us a clear picture of the importance of biotechnology in crop improvement. The production in agriculture should have steady growth and to achieve these objective conventional methods should go on parallel with biotechnological approaches. Genetic engineering which has revolutionized the path of crop improvement involves the identification and transfer of novel genes into the existing elite cultivars. Different methods of transferring the gene into plant cells have been developed and continuous efforts have been made to increase its efficiency. Both direct and indirect method of gene transfer has its own merits and demerits. Efforts have been made continuously to eliminate drawbacks and to develop an easy, elite and eco-friendly method to transfer genes. The transformation method which is a base of genetic engineering is vital and Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer and gene gun have shown to be doing well in recent years. As a whole the methodology involved, merits and demerits of different methods have been briefly discussed.

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Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor [L.]Moench) is a versatile crop grown in more than 100 countries in tropics and semiarid regions for food, fodder, fuel and fiber. Red sorghum is noted for its rich phenolic content and specifically 3-deoxyanthocyanin content that lacks hydroxyl group at C-3 position. A total of 80 sorghum landraces collected from various sources from Tamil Nadu were evaluated during Kharif, 2019 to record morphological diversity present in the accessions. The 12 quantitative traits were recorded stage wise following IIMR DUS descriptor. The quantitative data collected from 80 sorghum landraces were statistically analyzed by variability study and association study. The high PCV and GCV were recorded for height upto flag leaf, flower length, panicle emergence, total height, panicle length, panicle branch length, panicle neck length, thousand grain weight and single plant yield. The moderate level of GCV and PCV was recorded for leaf length and leaf width. The trait stem diameter showed high PCV and moderate GCV. The variability study indicated that more variations were found in the population which facilitates efficient selection. The grain yield was positively related with leaf width and thousand grain weight. The yield was negatively influenced by height upto flag leaf, flower length, total height, panicle length, panicle neck length and panicle emergence. The results of correlation analysis revealed that the selection for high yielding landraces can be carried out phenotypically by selecting landraces with high grain weight, early panicle emergence, lesser height upto flag leaf, reduced neck length, reduced flower length and more leaf width to develop a desired high yielding sorghum variety.