Not AvailableSorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] is a
drought-resilient crop, grown extensively in
semiarid tropics of the world. To understand
the scenario of sorghum cultivation across the
world, trends in area and yield gain and associated
changes in yield stability were analyzed in
the top 10 sorghum-producing countries from
1970 to 2009. Asian countries and the United
States recorded a large drop in harvested area.
Grain yield levels increased substantially in all
the countries except Sudan. Relative to yield
level of 1970, sorghum productivity increased
annually at 0.96% yr−1 across the top 10 countries
analyzed. China (100.9 kg ha−1 yr−1) and
Nigeria (48.6 kg ha−1 yr−1) experienced phenomenal
yield gain before reaching a plateau. Overall
yield gain was not associated with increased
yield stability in a majority of countries except
Ethiopia. In fact, in China and India (post-rainyseason
sorghum), the yield variability increased
over time. Genetic gain for grain yield over years
in the Indian sorghum improvement program
was prominent in rainy-season hybrid trials
(18.5 kg ha−1 yr−1), whereas both in post-rainyseason
hybrid and varietal trials it was insignificant.
Much progress in rainy-season variety trials
after 1985 was not observed. Across years in
India, the gap between potential and farm yield
declined 0.32% yr−1 among rainy-season cultivars
and 0.46% yr−1 among post-rainy-season
cultivars. The analysis reveals that though substantial
progress has been made towards yield
gain, this was not represented by increased
production because of extensive loss of the sorghum
area to other remunerative cropsNot Availabl