Relation of Hydrocyanic Acid Potential to Morphological Characteristics and Dry Matter Percentage of Sorghum1

Abstract

AbstractAll Sorghum species are believed to have the potential of producing hydrocyanic acid, and thus, the common usage of Sorghum as a forage results in the threat of poisoning to cattle. Since the determination of hydrocyanic acid potential (HCN‐p) is laborious, we sought to ascertain whether it is possible to predict HCN‐p from other more easily measured plant characteristics.The relationships of HCN‐p to various morphological plant characteristics and dry matter percentage of six sorghum types were studied in 1970 and 1971. Significant differences among the cultivars were found both years for all the plant characteristics—height, diameter of culm, length of stem, number of leaves, width and length of third leaf, dry matter percentage, and HCN‐p. Most of the correlation coefficients between HCN‐p and the morphological characteristics of the cultivars were not significant. Correlation coefficients between HCN‐p and dry matter percentage were all negative, and most were highly significant. It was not possible to predict HCN‐p from measurements of the morphological characters. Although dry matter percentages were influenced by genotype and stage of development, relative differences in dry matter percentages were indicative of relative differences in HCN‐p.