Abstract
Sorghum has great potential to be developed in marginal lands of Indonesia including East Nusa Tenggara. However, the information about sorghum diversity in this area was very limited. This research aimed to describe morphological variation, and assessing the value of genetic diversity based on morphological characters of local sorghum cultivar of East Nusa Tenggara. The exploration and sample collection were conducted in 3 islands, i.e.: Timor, Sumba, and Flores. The observation of morphological characters was based on sorghum descriptor. Morphological character similarities were analyzed using Simple Matching (SM) coefficient, and a dendrogram was constructed using Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Average (UPGMA) method. The results showed that 36 accessions of sorghum in East Nusa Tenggara varied in 17 morphological characters. At the similarity coefficients of 48%, all sorghum accessions were separated into 2 groups based on the presence or absence of aleurone layer. Group I consisted of 12 accessions with no aleurone layer, while group II consisted of 24 accessions has aleurone layer. The genetic diversity of sorghum of East Nusa Tenggara is low (I=0.62–0.71 and h=0.37-0.42). The genetic diversity between populations (HT=0.4203) is higher than within populations (HS=0.3961). This study provides the first complete information about sorghum diversity in East Nusa Tenggara that will be useful as basic information for sorghum development in this area in the future.
Highlights
Sorghum is the fifth important cereal crop in the world after wheat, rice, corn, and barley that is used mostly for food, feed, industry, and energy source (Dahlberg et al, 2011)
The variations have association with inflorescence compactness, shape of seed with bracts, base and apex bracts color, location of pubescent on bracts, angle on palea, percentage of seed covered by bracts; shape, base and apex color of seed without bracts, seed lustre, seed dimple, aleurone color, and endosperm texture (Figure 2 and 3).The presence of pubescent on bracts, angle on palea, awn on seeds, seed dimple and aleurone layer were found in some accessions
In similarity coefficient of 48%, all sorghum accessions were separated into 2 groups based on the presence or absence of aleurone layer
Summary
Sorghum is the fifth important cereal crop in the world after wheat, rice, corn, and barley that is used mostly for food, feed, industry, and energy source (Dahlberg et al, 2011). Many improved sorghum cultivars have been released in Asia including Indonesia. Indonesia has released 13 improved sorghum cultivars, 2 pure lines selected from local landraces and the others are from direct introductions (Deb et al, 2004). Sorghum becomes one of non-rice food which has been developed on many dry areas in Indonesia included in East Nusa Tenggara (Sirappa, 2003). Sorghum developed in East Nusa Tenggara consisted of many diverse local cultivars, but their diversity had not been described and documented yet. Previous studies reported that based on morphological character, the genetic diversity of sorghum in North Shewa and South Welo Ethiopia is high ( 0.32-0.98) (Abdi et al, 2002). The aims of this study were to (1) describe the variation of sorghum morphology of local cultivars in East Nusa Tenggara, (2) analyze the relationships between, and (3) assess the genetic diversity of local cultivars of East Nusa Tenggara based on their morphological characters
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