Cereal Chem. 70(2): 179-183 Sorghum grains varying in grain hardness or endosperm texture (soft dispersion in hot water. Parboiled grain with soft endosperm texture and intermediate) and starch composition (nonwaxy and waxy) were contained less dispersible and soluble starch than parboiled grain with parboiled. Whole grain (one volume) and water (three volumes) were intermediate endosperm textu...

Corn earworm, Helicoverpa zea Boddie (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), and fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda J.E. Smith, are occasional pests in sorghum, Sorghum bicolor L. Moench (Poales: Poaceae), and can be economically damaging when conditions are favorable. Despite the frequent occurrence of mixed-species infestations, the quantitative data necessary for developing yield loss relationships for ...

This study compared the effects of wheat- and sorghum-based diets on broiler chickens. The growth performance and caecal microbial community of chickens were measured and correlations between productivity and specific gut microbes were observed. Cobb broilers 15 days of age were individually caged and two dietary treatments were used, one with a wheat-based diet (n = 48) and another one with a ...

Aim: The present study was carried out to evaluate the nutrient digestibility of sweet sorghum stover, an unconventional roughage source in ram lambs in comparison to conventional sorghum and maize stovers. Materials and Methods: 18 Nellore ram lambs aged about 3 months (average body weight 15.65±0.10 kg) were randomly allotted to three complete rations formulated with roughage to concentrate r...

Expansion and contraction of microRNA (miRNA) families can be studied in sequenced plant genomes through sequence alignments. Here, we focused on miR169 in sorghum because of its implications in drought tolerance and stem-sugar content. We were able to discover many miR169 copies that have escaped standard genome annotation methods. A new miR169 cluster was found on sorghum chromosome 1. This c...

Brown midrib6 (bmr6) affects phenylpropanoid metabolism, resulting in reduced lignin concentrations and altered lignin composition in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor). Recently, bmr6 plants were shown to have limited cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase activity (CAD; EC 1.1.1.195), the enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of hydroxycinnamoyl aldehydes (monolignals) to monolignols. A candidate gene approach...

BACKGROUND Sorghum is one of the main staple food crops for the poorest and most food insecure people of the world. As Ethiopia is the centre of origin and diversity for sorghum, the crop has been cultivated for many thousands of years. Hence, indigenous knowledge based sorghum classification and naming has a long tradition. METHODS In order to assess folk taxonomy, various research methods w...

Bioenergy sorghum is targeted for production in water-limited annual cropland therefore traits that improve plant water capture, water use efficiency, and resilience to water deficit are necessary to maximize productivity. A crop modeling framework, APSIM, was adapted to predict the growth and biomass yield of energy sorghum and to identify potentially useful traits for crop improvement. APSIM ...

Rubisco limits photosynthetic CO(2) fixation because of its low catalytic turnover rate (k(cat)) and competing oxygenase reaction. Previous attempts to improve the catalytic efficiency of Rubisco by genetic engineering have gained little progress. Here we demonstrate that the introduction of the small subunit (RbcS) of high k(cat) Rubisco from the C(4) plant sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) significan...