Evaluation of Traits’ Performance Contributing to Drought Tolerance in Sorghum
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Date
2021-08-26
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Agronomy
Abstract
: Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor [L.] Moench) is an important food crop for people in semi-arid
Africa. The crop is affected by post-flowering drought; therefore, the study was conducted to screen
traits contributing to drought tolerance using BC2F4 sorghum genotypes in stressed and unstressed
water conditions in a split-plot design. Water stress (0 mm/day) was applied at post-flowering to
plant maturity in water-stressed treatment. The genotype SE438 produced the highest grain yield
(2.65 ton ha−1
) in water-stressed environment and NA316C yielded highest (3.42 ton ha−1
) under well-watered (7 mm/day) environment. There were significant differences of most traits evaluated at
p < 0.01 across environments. The mean squares of traits for genotypes by environments revealed
interactions at p < 0.05 and p < 0.01. The indices geometric mean productivity (GMP) and mean
productivity (MP) were highly correlated with yield under well-watered (YP) and water-stressed
condition (YS) and each other. The first principal axis (PC1) explained 59.1% of the total variation.
It is the best indicator of yield potential and drought tolerance of sorghum genotypes in this study.
Therefore, further improvement is needed to strengthen drought tolerance and yield in sorghum.
Description
Keywords
genotypes by environments, panicle weight, recurrent parents, leaf rolling, root biomass, ACE: Crop Improvement, University of Ghana, Ghana