Sorghum bicolor is an important cereal crop grown on the arid and semi-arid regions of >98 different countries. These regions are such that this crop is often subjected to low water conditions, which can compromise yields. Stay-green sorghum plants are able to retain green leaf area for longer under drought conditions and as such have higher yields than their senescent counterparts. However, th...

Time to maturity is a critical trait in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) breeding, as it determines whether a variety can be grown in a particular cropping system or ecosystem. Understanding the nucleotide variation and the mechanisms of molecular evolution of the maturity genes would be helpful for breeding programs. In this study, we analyzed the nucleotide diversity of Ma3, an important maturity ge...

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) originated in the semi-arid tropics and generally is sensitive to low-temperature stress. Chilling stresses include low temperature (below 20 °C) and freezing injury (below 0 °C). In this study seed germination and seedling growth of three sorghum genotypes (KFS1, KFS2 and Speedfeed) were examined under four temperature regimes (35/15, 20/10, 13/10 and 11/8) conditi...

Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were used to characterize genetic diversity in 30 sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] accessions conserved in the national gene bank of Botswana. This collection represents the three sorghum-growing agro-ecological zones in the country. Ten microsatellite primer pairs were used, and these generated a total of 53 alleles with three to seventeen alleles per ...

RNA editing and cytoplasmic male sterility are two important phenomena in higher plant mitochondria. To determine whether correlations might exist between the two, RNA editing in different tissues of Sorghum bicolor was compared employing reverse transcription-PCR and subsequent sequence analysis. In etiolated shoots, RNA editing of transcripts of plant mitochondrial atp6, atp9, nad3, nad4, and...

Specialty sorghums, their brans, and baked and extruded products were analyzed for antioxidant activity using three methods: oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), 2,2'-azinobis (3-ethyl-benzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS), and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH). All sorghum samples were also analyzed for phenolic contents. Both ABTS and DPPH correlated highly with ORAC (R(2) = 0.99 a...

Sorghum production is affected by a wide array of biotic constraints, of which sorghum shoot fly, Atherigona soccata is the most important pest, which severely damages the sorghum crop during the seedling stage. Host plant resistance is one of the major components to control sorghum shoot fly, A. soccata. To understand the nature of gene action for inheritance of shoot fly resistance, we evalua...

28 Background: 29 The West-African variety of Sorghum bicolor leaf sheath (SBLS) Jobelyn® is a natural 30 remedy, which has gained international recognition for its anti-anemic effect and energy 31 boosting qualities in debilitating diseases. The widespread use of traditional medicine in 32 Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 7 December 2017 doi:10.20944/preprints201712....