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Not AvailableSorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench), the fifth most important cereal crop worldwide, is best known for its adaptation to drought prone semi-arid tropical regions in poor soils. To meet the increased demand for food grains and to make sorghum cultivation more profitable, productivity of sorghum needs to be improved. To increase the productivity of sorghum, there is a continuous demand for high yielding sorghum cultivars with broad genetic base. Sorghum is endowed with high variability due to its wide range of adaptation in tropical and temperate climates, and free gene exchange among various races. Sorghum breeders in India have used germplasm lines belonging to different races (Audilakshmi et al. 2003), and its yield has been increased by more than 50%. Of late, in India and in the world, the potential yield levels of sorghum have reached a plateau, and there is an urgent need for diversification of the genetic base of the breeding material to break the yield plateau. Further improvement in yield can be brought out by component breeding where the genotypes will be improved for important yield components through pyramiding of the genes responsible for different yield components such as number of primary branches, number of secondary branches, number of grains/panicle, panicle length, width and weight etc (Aruna and Audilakshmi 2008). Identification of important agronomic traits in different germplasm lines and incorporating them in elite background is very important for yield improvement. Even more important is to ensure that the selected germplasm line passes on the trait of our interest to the next generation. The concept of general and specific combining ability is useful to characterize the genotypes for their ability to pass on the trait of interest. Hence a field experiment was conducted to evaluate sorghum germplasm lines for their general combining ability for yield and important yield components to facilitate their use in sorghumNot Availabl

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Not AvailableSweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is an important biofuel crop that produces both food (grain) and biofuel (from stalk juice). The objective of this investigation was to assess the effect of different crushing treatments on juice extraction and sugar quality traits of sweet sorghum cultivars grown in different seasons. Three sweet sorghum cultivars along with three stalk crushing treatments namely (i) stalk only crushed (leaf, sheath and panicle removed), (ii) stalk plus sheath crushed (leaf and panicle removed), and (iii) whole plant crushed (but only panicle removed) were assessed in split–split-plot design during 2009 rainy (Kharif) and 2009 post-rainy (Rabi) seasons. The percent juice extraction and juice sugar quality traits were significant (P< 0.05) in different crop seasons, but were non-significant among cultivars and crushing treatments. Sweet sorghum cultivars grown during rainy season had significantly higher total soluble sugars (TSS), sucrose and purity per cent than in post-rainy season. Experimental variety SPSSV 30 showed significant superiority by 25 % in TSS and sucrose content than check namely CSH 22SS. Effect of crushing treatments on juice extraction and sugar quality traits were non-significant except juice brix. It is recommended that the complete sweet sorghum stalks after removing the panicle can be crushed without the need for removing leaf and sheath both in large research trial samples, and bulk harvested stalks at biofuel processing facility. This will reduce processing time at the sugar mill and helps avoiding rapid deterioration of stalk sugars in the ambient field condition, as removal of leaf and sheath in sweet sorghum is highly cumbersome unlike sugarcane, where it is relatively easy.Not Availabl