Correlation relationships of economically valuable characteristics of sugar sorghum samples in arid conditions of the Lower Volga region

Abstract

Relevance. Sugar sorghum is one of the leading forage crops in the regions of arid agriculture. Comprehensive in-depth study and improvement of breeding-valuable indicators, determination of correlations between traits to identify the strongest dependencies in order to accelerate the breeding process is relevant.Methods. The field assessment of 11 morphometric indicators and productivity elements of the studied samples (43 in total) was carried out according to the methodology of the state variety testing of agricultural cultures. The assessment of the conjugacy of features was carried out according to the correlation analysis using the «Agros 2.09» program.Results. The different degree of conjugacy of the signs is revealed. On average, in 2020–2022, the yield of sugar sorghum biomass depended on seed productivity (r = 0.70), seed size (r = 0.41), the area of the largest leaf (r = 0.39). At the same time, the seed yield correlated with the mass of 1000 grains and the area of the largest leaf (r = 0.45–0.46). There was a significant positive correlation between the height of plants at maturity and the extension of the inflorescence stem (r = 0.58). It was found that in sugar sorghum, the seed size correlated with the area of the largest leaf (r = 0.49). At the same time, the length and width of the inflorescence have a conjugacy equal to 0.46. In addition, in years differing in meteorological conditions, there was a different degree of manifestation of the interrelationships between the considered signs, which must be taken into account when conducting the selection process. Knowledge of the features of correlations provides acceleration of the creation of new varieties with the specified parameters.