Abstract
Improving sorghum cultivars for postrainy season adaptation is crucial toensure food security in dry regions of India. Postrainy season sorghum isprimarily used as a food owing to its good grain quality and also the mainsource of fodder quality especially during dry seasons. Hence, the presentinvestigation was carried out with ten elite sorghum hybrids along withthree controls (M 35- 1, Parbhani Moti and CSH 15R) at three locations viz.,International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT),Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth (MPKV) and Marathwada AgriculturalUniversity (MAU) during the postrainy season, to identify the best performingsorghum hybrids for postrainy season adaptation. The best performinghybrids for grain yield across three locations were ICSA 502 × SPV 422 (2.4t ha-1), 8712 (2.1 t ha-1), ICSA 38 × SPV 422 (2.1 t ha-1), ICSA 84 × SPV 1411(2.1 t ha-1) and XSR401 (2.1 t ha-1)compared to the control CSH 15R (1.8 tha-1), Parbhani Moti (1.5 t ha-1) and M 35-1 (1.5 t ha-1). The selected hybridswere 3 to 4 days earlier than M 35-1 and at par with CSH 15R. Substantialvariability observed for 100 seed size (2.4 to3.5g) and grain luster (score1 to 2) among the hybrids. The tested hybrids had shootfly dead heartspercentage ranging from 53 to 75. Based on the number of nodes infected,infection length and percent soft rot, two hybrids (ICSA 675 x SPV 1411 andICSA 675 x ICSV 700) appeared tolerant to charcoal rot with <1 internodeinfection, length of infection <5 cm and <10% soft rot.
Highlights
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is the fifth most important cereal crop in the world, after rice, wheat, maize and barley (Reddy et al, 2010)
The grain productivity is about 1.2 t ha-1 in the rainy season in India while it is about 0.8 t ha-1 in postrainy season (ICRISAT, 2011)
A sorghum advanced hybrid trial was conducted with ten hybrids at ICRISAT- Patancheru(altitude545 m above mean sea level, latitude 17.53°N and longitude 78.27°E), Marathwada Agricultural University (MAU)- Parbhani and Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth (MPKV)- Rahuri with three controls (CSH 15R, M 35-1 and Parbhani Moti).Two of the hybrids from private sector were included in this trial along with the ten test entries
Summary
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is the fifth most important cereal crop in the world, after rice, wheat, maize and barley (Reddy et al, 2010) It is cultivated in wide geographic areas in the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. The grain productivity is about 1.2 t ha-1 in the rainy season in India while it is about 0.8 t ha-1 in postrainy season (ICRISAT, 2011). The low grain productivity in postrainy sorghum in India is due to several factors. Several varieties like Phule Yashoda, Phule Chitra, Parbhani Moti, Parbhani Jyothi, etc., were released in the recent years by the All India Coordinated Sorghum Improvement Program (AICSIP). Coordinated Sorghum Improvement Program) has been testing hybrids for postrainy season and a few of them were released. In the present study we report the performance of some of the selected postrainy season hybrids for grain yield and other adaptation features and discuss the ways of improving them further for the postrainy season adaptation
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