Effect of Post Flowering Drought Tolerance on Yield and Yield components in some Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) Genotypes

Abstract

The experiment was conducted in the kharif season 2019 at the demonstration farm of the Sudan University of Science and Technology, College of Agriculture, Shambat. The objectives of this study were to study effect of post flowering drought on yield and yield components among ten sorghum genotypes and selected the best sorghum genotypes through for good performance under drought stress conditions to compare with normal conditions. The genotypes use in this study from plant Genetic Resources Unit (Gene-Bank) of the Agricultural Research Corporation (ARC) Wad Medani, Split-plot design was used by two main plots, fully irrigated and stress plots and genotypes was sub-plots with three replications. All the genotypes in both irrigated and drought stress treatments were fully irrigated until booting to early flowering stage. At flowering stage water was withheld for 21 days for the drought stress treatment, while the control treatment received regular irrigation throughout the experiment. Traits studied included yield and its, components (Head Length (cm), Head exertion(cm), Head width(cm), 100-Seed weight(g) and Grain yield (kg/kg). The results of analysis showed a genetic variability in the response of studied genotypes under water stress conditions, reflected in a significant decline in the studied traits, compared with normal conditions. The genotypes HSD 6775, HSD3249 and HSD6149 showed low reduction in grain yield (11.7), (12.3) and (12%), respectively these genotypes had the lowest affected by drought stress. These genotypes could be used to development for post flowering drought in sorghum breeding program.