Combining ability studies for grain yield and its components in postrainy-season sorghum grown in medium-deep and shallow soils

摘要

Postrainy-season (rabi) sorghums [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] are unique to India, where they are grown under residual and receding soil moisture situations primarily in the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. Since there is no remunerative cereal alternative to sorghum, such crops are crucial for food and fodder security in drought-prone areas of these states that receive only 8 percent of the annual rainfall during the postrainy season. Because the crop is grown over large areas in medium (45-90 cm) and shallow (45 cm) soils where drought occurs much faster than in deep soils (> 90 cm), sorghum productivity is very low (611 kg ha~(-1)). Efforts made at various sorghum-breeding centers to develop hybrids adapted to the postrainy season, have not been very fruitful. So, much of the sorghum area is still under traditional local sorghum cultivars. To elevate the productivity levels of postrainy-season sorghum, there is an urgent need to develop hybrids adapted to the shallow andmedium soils that cover 70 percent of the total sorghum area cultivated in this season (Bapat and Gujar 1990). The present study was planned to identify parents (both CMS lines and restorers) and their hybrids that are suitable for cultivation in the postrainy season.