Abstract
Efficacy of pollination bags made of new nonwoven fabrics was compared with the traditional paper bags in sorghum during 2015 using three cultivars comprising BR007B (red seeded), SC283 (white seeded) and 1167048 hybrid with tannin (brown seeded). The five pollination bag treatments were: no bagging, traditional paper bag, paper bag plus plastic screen bag for extra bird protection, duraweb® SG2 polypropylene bag and duraweb® SG1 polyester bag. There was no bird damage on tannin hybrid but birds damaged bags to access grains of the other two varieties. Varieties and bag types differed significantly, and also showed significant interactions for panicle weight (at P<0.06), seed weight and average seed weight per panicle. The tannin hybrid was consistently a better performer for all traits regardless of bag type. The paper bags were the worst for bird damage. Duraweb® SG1 was the best performer for all traits including bird damage followed by duraweb® SG2. The joint regression analysis showed that BR007B performed consistently under all bag types with average response. On the other hand, SC283 improved its response with the increasing quality of bag type at an above average rate for panicle weight and seed traits. It was concluded that new nonwoven fabric bags could replace paper bags in providing better seed production potential and greater protection against bird damage. Key words: Sorghum, pollination bags, panicle weight, seed weight, bird control.
Highlights
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) has great inherent variation with as many as 40,000 germplasm accessions in the US sorghum collection alone, in addition to germplasm collections of many countries of their own (Dahlberg et al, 2011). Maintenance of these germplasm accessions and breeding lines at numerous research stations is facilitated by isolating the genetic accessions and breeding lines from contamination with foreign pollen
Plant breeders have been covering the panicles of sorghum with paper bags for pollen control and to protect developing seeds from bird damage and for hybridization of different types of sorghum for genetic
Heating within the soft and hard polyethylene bags was 25 and 50% that of paper bags, respectively. These studies clearly indicated the need for studies on alternatives to commonly used paper bags in sorghum
Summary
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) has great inherent variation with as many as 40,000 germplasm accessions in the US sorghum collection alone, in addition to germplasm collections of many countries of their own (Dahlberg et al, 2011) Maintenance of these germplasm accessions and breeding lines at numerous research stations is facilitated by isolating the genetic accessions and breeding lines from contamination with foreign pollen. Such bags are not very effective against bird damage because the birds over time associate the paper bags, which they can tear off with their beaks, with food of developing seeds underneath. These studies clearly indicated the need for studies on alternatives to commonly used paper bags in sorghum
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