Development of sorghum mutant genotypes and analysis of their agro-morphological diversity

Abstract

Sorghum is one of the most important cereal grains in Africa's Sub-Saharan region, used for human consumption and animal feed, but its production is hampered by biotic and abiotic constraints, necessitating genetic improvement of sorghum. The goal of this experiment was to use the ethyl methane sulfonate induced mutation technique to develop superior genotypes for sorghum production and quality for food and industry in order to achieve food security. The concentration of EMS was initially optimized by calculating LD50. Both Argity and Dekeba genotypes were treated with six different concentrations of EMS (0.10, 0.25, 0.30, 0.50, 0.75 and 1.00 %) and three different soaking periods (7, 8 and 9 hrs). The 0.25% EMS concentration at 8 hrs was chosen because it had a 50% seed survival rate and the highest frequency of mutations to generate M1 seeds. From M2 and M3, about 4000 and 2000 mutant populations were screened, respectively. For trait characterization, 190 mutated lines were selected from a mutant population of 2000M2. The 190 mutant populations and two parents were evaluated for genetic diversity, character association, and genetic divergence. For the observed quantitative phenotypic traits, analyses of variance showed substantial inter-population difference. When compared to their parent cultivars, the study mean of six treatment populations in each cultivar showed significantly superior quantitative phenotypic traits. Plant height, flowering date, maturity date, stem diameter, grain weight, and thousand seed weight varied with 81.48, 77, 42.03, 56.11, 11.44, and 96.68 % heritability in the mutant lines, according to agro-morphological characterization. The elite mutants were identified using principal component analysis based on their agro-morphological traits, while Pearson's correlation findings showed a positive correlation between yield component traits. Finally, our research allowed the identification of new promising mutant genotypes that could be tested in multi-local trials to assess their agronomic efficiency.

Gamma Rays Induced Mutations in Sorghum: Isolating Desired Genetic Variations for Enhanced Crop Development

“…In the case of mortality, the highest mortality was recorded at 500 Gy (39.43) followed by 350 Gy (32.42), Similar results were observed by Reddy and Smith (1976), Viraktamath and Goud (1977), Reddy and Cheralu (1984), Xin et al (2008), Ambli and Mullainathan (2015), Htun et al (2015), Jiao et al (2016), Nikiema et al (2020), Takele et al (2021) and Kalpande et al (2022).…”