Abstract

Understanding genetic variation underlying adaptive traits responsible for sorghum’s ability to tolerate challenging growing environments is of great importance. The present investigation was conducted to identify sources of genetic traits  for utilization in product and hybrid parent development. Result showed that there exists variability for local names with Farafara and Kaura as most common types accounting for 30% and 40% respectively.SSR markers revealed opportunity to utilize these genetic resources for development of male sterility maintainer in hybrid parent program. Variation for days to 50% flowering ranged from 59-130 days with mean of 96 days, while plant height varied from 164 to 460 cm with mean of 343. There was variation for 100-seed weight (g) which ranged from 2.99 to 3.19g with mean value of 3.09g. Variation for grain yield (kg/ha) ranged from 2 649 to 3 566 kg/ha with mean of 3 108 kg/ha. Variation for grain colour were significant distributed into White (Farafara), Yellow (Kaura), Red or cream where Farafara with Yellow grain colour had equal share of 45% each. Highly significant variation exists for panicle shape classifying into 11 forms with compact elliptic accounting for 20%.  Result from 2014 and 2015 landrace collections showed that Farafara types had the highest Fe concentration of 90.7ppm and 69.0pp while the Kaura types had the highest Zn concentration of 69.9ppm and 41,9ppm for 2014 and 2015 collections respectively. Diversity analysis for micronutrient concentration among the 2017 landrace collections for Iron (Fe) concentration ranged from 10.8 to 79.6ppm while Zinc (Zn) content ranged from 8.2 to 42.4ppm.  In the present investigation, there exists wide genetic diversity among the sorghum accessions, providing scope for further genetic improvement.

Key words: Sorghum, Germplasm, Landraces, Diversity, Micronutrient, Genomics, male sterility, Genetics, Utilization