Indian Society of Genetics & Plant Breeding
Sorghum is cultivated both in rainy (kharif) and post
rainy (rabi) seasons predominantly under rainfed
conditions in India. The rabi sorghum (Sorghum bicolor
L.) sown in the months of September/October completes
its life cycle with residual soil moisture condition under
normal growing season. Due to erratic rainfall the timing
and duration of occurrence of moisture stress vary from
year to year. If the environmental conditions experienced
in the test environment are different from those in normal
season, the assessment of plant physiological response
to soil water deficits would be incorrect leading to wrong
selection [1]. To determine the degree of similarity
among the test environments Type-B genetic
correlations [2, 3] are used for genotype ranking. Also
the model of correlated selection [4] can be used to
determine the relative merits of selecting for specific
versus broad adaptation. In test environment, the field
sowing is postponed by one or two months (rain-out
dry season), so that the genotypes are exposed to
severe moisture stress condition from seedling to
maturity. Based on the superior yield performance in
test environment (rain-out dry season) the drought
tolerant genotypes are selected and recommended for
normal growing season. Although, the test and growing
environments are rabi season, the change in
microenvironment due to late sowing may influence the
genotypic performance. The genotypes x
microenvironment interaction, is hitherto, not
considered. Therefore, in the present study we analyzed
the effect of moisture stress treatment vis-a-vis test
environment on the performance of sorghum genotypes.
Keywords: N/A
Year: 2008
Volume: 68
Issue: 4
Article DOI: N/A
Print ISSN: 0019-5200
Online ISSN: 0975-6906
B. S. Patil,R. L. Ravikumar info_circle
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