Combining drought and aluminum toxicity tolerance to improve sorghum productivity

Abstract

Moisture stress and aluminium toxicity in sorghum production can be overcome by breeding for tolerance. This study was set up to determine the response of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) genotypes to post- anthesis drought and aluminium toxicity. Sorghum inbred P1 with stay green drought tolerance was crossed with P2, a standard aluminium tolerant cultivar. The parents, the first filial plants (F1) and KM-4 were tested for drought and aluminium toxicity tolerance in the field and solution culture with 0 and ìMol 148 Al3+ respectively. The drought experiment was laid in RCBD with three replicates and split -plot arrangement. Randomly selected plots were denied irrigation from six weeks after emergence. There were significant (P < 0.05) differences between treatments and accessions. Panicle weight of F1 was outstanding and significantly different from the rest both with and without water. F1 out performed P1, P2 and KM-4 by 95.61, 146.37 and 328.81% without water; and by 155.44, 124. 27 and 82.02% with water, respectively. There were significant (P < 0.05) differences in the sorghum accessions with P2, KM-4 and F1 being tolerant. These results indicate that multiple stress tolerance can increase sorghum productivity.