4 research outputs found
Novel sources of drought tolerance from landraces and wild sorghum relatives
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor [L.] Moench) is the fifth most important cereal crop
worldwide and second aftermaize (Zeamays L.) in Kenya. It is an important food
security crop in arid and semi-arid lands, where its production potential is hampered
by drought. Drought tolerance can be measured by a plant’s ability to resist
premature senescence, often described as stay-green. This study was carried out
with the objective of identifying novel stay-green trait among wild and landrace
genotypes of sorghum. Forty-four sorghum genotypes that included 16 improved,
nine landraces, and 17 wild relatives of sorghum alongside known stay-green
sources, B35 and E36-1, were evaluated under well-watered and water-stressed
conditions in an alpha-lattice design of three replications. Data was collected on
plant height (PHT), flag leaf area (FLA), panicle weight (PWT), 100-seed weight
(HSW), relative chlorophyll content (RCC), number of green leaves at maturity
(GLAM), days to 50% flowering (DFL), and grain yield (YLD). Genetic diversity
was determined using diversity arrays technology (DArT) sequencing and quality
control (QC) markers were generated using a java script. Lodoka, a landrace,
was the most drought-tolerant genotype, recorded the highest numbers of RCC
and GLAM, and outperformed B35 and E36-1 in yield under water-stress and
well-watered conditions. The RCC was highly correlated with GLAM (r = .71)
and with yield-related traits, HSW (r = .85), PWT (r = .82), and YLD (r = .78).
All traits revealed high heritability (broad-sense) ranging from 60.14 to 98.4% for
RCC and DFL, respectively. These results confirm earlier reports that wild relatives
and landraces are a good source of drought tolerance alleles