Identification of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) landraces tolerant to post flowering drought stress using drought tolerance indices

Abstract

Drought stress occurring during the post-flowering growth stage of sorghum can cause considerable reduction in yield. In order to identify drought tolerant Eritrean sorghum landraces and assess efficiency of drought tolerance indices, twenty five sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) accessions were evaluated in split plot design with three replications. Fully irrigated and drought stress treatments were assigned in main plot and the landraces were evaluated in sub plot for drought stress tolerance at post-flowering. Seven tolerance indices including stress tolerance index (STI), mean productivity (MP), geometric mean productivity (GMP), stress susceptibility index (SSI), tolerance index (TOL), yield index (YI), and yield stability index (YSI) were estimated for each genotype based on grain yield under drought stress (Y s) and irrigated conditions (Y ir). Significant correlations between Y ir and Y s with GMP, MP, STI and YI were recorded indicating that these indices were good predictors of drought tolerance among genotypes. The other stress tolerance indices namely, TOL, SSI, YSI and YI were not significantly correlated with Y ir and Y s indicating that they were poor predictors of drought tolerance. The study further showed that drought stress reduced the yield of some genotypes while others were tolerant to drought and gave stable yield. Based on the tolerance indices, accessions EG 885, EG 469, EG 481, EG 849, Hamelmalo, EG 836 and EG 711 were identified as superior genotypes for post-flowering drought tolerance that could be used by breeders in further sorghum improvement programs.

Identification of germplasm lines for diversification of dual-purpose sorghums

“…The seventh (PC VII) was explained negatively by the variations resulting from leaf colour and positively from grain lustre (Table 4). The principal components analysis clearly showed that the entire variation in the 642 sorghum germplasm lines cannot be explained on the basis of few characters and thereby a number of traits were involved in explaining the gross variance among the genotypes though with different magnitudes.Similar results were discussed in earlier studies in sorghum (Ayana and Bekele, 1999;Tesfamichael et al, 2015).…”

Can Cold Tolerance Bring in Hybrids on Commercial Front in Winter Sorghum?

“…This, in turn, implies that several traits are involved in explaining the gross variance among genotypes. This further confirms previous results that also described the importance of these traits in contributing towards the overall diversity in sorghum 11,12 . Discriminant analysis revealed that 81% of the genotypes were correctly classified to their breeding groups.…”

Performance evaluation of sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] hybrids in the moisture stress conditions of Abergelle District, Northern Ethiopia

“…Bello et al (2007) reported high value of PCV and GCV for panicle length per plant, 1000 seed weight, days to flowering and days to maturity (Kassahun et al, 2015), high PCV values (>20%) for leaf area index, plant height, panicle weight, panicle yield, grain yield and harvest index and relatively high GCV values (> 20%) for leaf area index, plant height, panicle yield, grain yield and harvest index. Tesfamichael et al (2015) also reported high magnitude of phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variations for plant height, harvest index and biomass. In contrast to the present study, low GCV and PVC (<20%) was observed in terms of panicle length, number of seeds per panicle, plant height, days to maturity, 1000 seed weight except grain yield, biomass and harvest index (Table 3).…”