Recent efforts to engineer C4 photosynthetic traits into C3 plants such as rice demand an understanding of the genetic elements that enable C4 plants to outperform C3 plants. As a part of the C4 Rice Consortium's efforts to identify genes needed to support C4 photosynthesis, EMS mutagenized sorghum populations were generated and screened to identify genes that cause a loss of C4 function. Stabl...

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor ( L. ) Moench ) has emerged as a leading candidate for biomass utilization among energy crops due to high yield potential, ease o f culture and wide adaptibility. Previously, enormous diversity present in the germplasm has been manipulated by sorghum breeding programs primarily to produce grain, syrup or forage. Development of sorghums for energy utilization will requir...

A weaning food commonly used in Nigeria was simulated by mixing processed sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) with skim-milk powder (830: 170, w/w). Replacing 310 g/kg sorghum with processed cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata) resulted in an increase in protein content from 96 to 113 g/kg and an increase in biological value of the protein from 0.74 to 0.87. The two mixtures were compared with an established comm...

Aluminium (Al) toxicity is a major abiotic constraint on grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) production on acid soils in East Africa. Aluminium in acidic soil inhibits water and mineral uptake from and consequently, reduces plant vigour and yield. A study was done to determine genetic diversity of Tanzania’s sorghum for response to Al toxicity. Five day old seedlings of 98 sorghum genotyp...

The sorghum-sudangrass hybrid (Sorghum bicolor x S. sudanense) is an important forage crop. However, little is known about the genetic mechanisms related to forage yield and the 4 forage yield component traits in this forage crop. In this study, a linkage map was constructed with 124 assigned SSR markers using an F2 mapping population derived from the crossing of sorghum Tx623A and sudangrass S...

Over the last two decades, DNA fingerprinting have been increasingly used to characterize germplasm of different organisms including crop plants, which was otherwise difficult with morphological and or isozyme markers because of paucity of genetic information at phenotypic level. In the present study, two hybrid samples of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) received from Federal Seed Certification an...

A.H. Paterson (ed.), Genomics of the Saccharinae, Plant Genetics and Genomics: Crops and Models 11, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-5947-8_16, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract Sustainable production of sorghum, Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench, depends on effective control of insect pests as they continue to compete with humans for the sorghum crop. Insect pests are a major constraint...

In a runoff irrigation system using levelled basins, the water uptake patterns of different plant species (Acacia saligna (Labill.) H. L. Wend. and Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench.) with contrasting root and shoot development were compared. Rainfall amounts during 1995 led to enough runoff water for realizing two cropping cycles. The amount of irrigation water was sufficient to fill the moisture-de...