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Early‐maturing dual‐purpose sorghums: Agronomic trait variation and covariation among landraces
Author(s) -
Rattunde H. F. W.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
plant breeding
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.583
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1439-0523
pISSN - 0179-9541
DOI - 10.1111/j.1439-0523.1998.tb01444.x
Subject(s) - stover , sorghum , biology , agronomy , dual purpose , trait , grain yield , heritability , seedling , genetic variation , cultivar , yield (engineering) , crop , mechanical engineering , biochemistry , genetics , computer science , gene , programming language , engineering , materials science , metallurgy
Landrace cultivars represent potentially valuable source material for breeding dual‐purpose (grain and stover) sorghums. To characterize the genetic variation and interrelationships for major agronomic traits among potential dual‐purpose sorghum landraces, 74 accessions, primarily from Southern Africa, the Sudan, and India, were evaluated in five environments at Patancheru, India. These environments, at 17°N with 520‐540 mm rainfall during the growing season, are representative of the major sorghum‐growing areas in India and the Sudanian Zone of Western and Central Africa. Significant genetic variation and high heritabilities (P = 0.01, h 2 = 0.63‐0.92) were observed for seedling vigour, grain and stover yields, growth rate and harvest index. Time to flower was correlated with stover yield (r = 0.48, P = 0.01) and an index (I ev ) of total economic value (r = 0.44, P = 0.01) but not with grain yield (r = 0.22, P = 0.05). Grain and stover yields varied independently (r = 0.22, P = 0.05) and were similarly related to I ev , values (r = 0.79 and r = 0.77 (P = 0.01), respectively). The 13 landraces with the highest I ev values (adjusted for maturity) had above‐average growth rates and harvest indices that ranged from 20 to 38%. Landraces from Botswana and India were more highly represented in the high I ev set than in the full set of accessions.