AGRO-MORPHOLOGICAL AND NUTRITIONAL QUALITY EVALUTION OF SORGHUM [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] INBRED LINES IN SHERARO, NORTHERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out in total of 100 sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.), Moench] genotypes. The material for investigation consisted of 84 inbred lines, 15 parental lines and one standard check (Melkam) were evaluated using 10x10 simple lattice designs at Sheraro, Northern Ethiopia in 2017 to evaluate sorghum inbred lines for agro-morphological and grain quality traits and to determine the association, direct and indirect effects of yield, yield components and quality related traits. Data were collected for 23 agro-morphology and grain quality traits, and subjected to analysis of variance and subsequent estimation of variance components, heritability and genetic advance, association of characters and genetic divergence. The analysis of variance showed highly significant (P<0.01) difference among genotypes for all traits, indicating the existence of variability and the potential selection of genotypes and improvement of traits. Grain yield ranged from 508.77 to 5062.78 Kg ha-1 with mean grain yield of 3323.39 Kg ha-1, 24 genotypes gave maximum grain yield ranging from 4016.60 to 5062.78 Kg ha-1 with non-significance difference among them. Grain protein content ranged from 7.726 to 15.853% with grand mean of 10.64%. The highest grain protein content was obtained from ETSC 14452-15-14 (15.853%), Al-70 (15.531%) and ETSC 14452-14-3-2 (15.12%) and these genotypes can be used as donor parents for improving protein content. Moreover, three inbred lines of early to medium maturity, high yielding and medium grain quality; ETSC14478-1-1 (4726.48 Kg ha-1 and 11.45%), ETSC14468-7-3-1 (4651.17 Kg ha-1and 12.21%) and ETSC14468-5-1 (4728.42 Kg ha-1and 10.4%), grain yield and grain protein content respectively, can be considered to develop new varieties. The genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) ranged from 2.65 for number of effective tillers (NT) to 55.70% for grain tannin content, while phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) varied from 4.64 for days to maturity to 58.19% for grain tannin content. The broad sense heritability (H2) ranged from 28.57 for NT to 96.78% for plant height, while genetic advance as percent of mean (GAM) ranged from 2.92 for NT to 109.98% for grain tannin content. High GCV, high heritability and high GAM were registered for grain yield, harvest index, number of seeds per head, panicle yield, panicle length, plant height, tannin content and grain endosperm texture. The GCV and PCV differences were low in magnitude for all traits except NT, indicating that these traits were highly heritable and the influence of environment was less. Grain yield (GY) was positively and significantly correlated with panicle yield (PY), panicle weight (PW), number of seeds per head (NSH), harvest index (HI) and relatively stand count (SC) both at the genotypic and phenotypic levels. PY, HI and SC had strong and positive direct effect on GY, but PW and NSH had low direct effect. The result suggested that selection on PY, HI and SC would lead to increment of GY directly, while selection for PW and NSH could be used as indirect selection via DF, GFP, PY and HI at phenotypic level, and via PY and HI at genotypic level. The genetic distances measured by D2 and Ward's clustering method grouped the 100 genotypes in to eight distinct clusters. The largest and the smallest clusters comprised about 24 genotypes (24%-cluster III) and 5 genotypes (5%-cluster IV and VIII), respectively. The highest and lowest inter cluster distance was observed between Cluster V and VIII (169.220) and between Cluster II and III (8.859), respectively. The first six principal components with an eigen value >1 accounted for 78.13% of the total variation. Genotypes ETSC14478-1-1 (4726.48 Kg ha-1and 11.45%), ETSC14468-7-3-1 (4651.17 Kg ha-1and 12.21%) and ETSC 14468-5-1 (4728.42 Kg ha-1and 10.4%), grain yield and protein content, respectively, can be recommend for the study area after evaluating across locations and over years.