GENETIC DIVERSITY STUDIES IN SWEET SORGHUM [SORGHUM BICOLOR (L.) MOENCH], A CANDIDATE CROP FOR BIOFUEL PRODUCTION
A. V. UMAKANTH, B. SAI KRISHNA NIKHIL* AND V. A. TONAPI
ICAR-Indian Institute of Millets Research (IIMR),
Rajendranagar, Hyderabad-500 030 (India)
*(e-mail : b.saikrishnanikhil@gmail.com)
(Received : 18 May 2019 ; Accepted : 27 June 2019)
SUMMARY
A field experiment was conducted at IIMR during rabi 2016-17 to study the nature and magnitude of genetic diversity and identify promising parents in sweet sorghum for biofuel related traits like brix (%), green cane yield and related characters in 68 sweet sorghum genotypes. Depending on the D2 values, these were grouped into 9 clusters. Cluster II was the largest consisting of 17 genotypes and cluster IX was the least with one genotype. Among the 13 characters studied, days to 50% flowering contributed the most followed by 100 seed weight towards the divergence of genotypes. The highest intra cluster distance was observed for cluster VIII while the maximum inter cluster distance was observed between clusters IV and IX. Based on the D2 values, the genotypes from diverse clusters would be derived and used in the hybridization program to generate wide range of transgressive segregants for genetic enhancement of sweet sorghum for biofuel related traits.
Key words: sweet sorghum, genetic diversity, brix, green cane yield