Sorghum cultivation and improvement in West and Central Africa

Genetic Diversification and Selection Strategies for Improving Sorghum Grain Yield Under Phosphorous-Deficient Conditions in West Africa

“…Thirteen biparental backcross populations were developed using the same recurrent parent "Lata" and 13 different donor parents (Table 1). The recurrent parent was derived from a random-mating Guinea Population [7] and identified through farmer-participatory variety testing [16,17]. Lata3 was chosen as the recurrent parent because of its importance.…”

“…This cereal crop is produced in low-input farming systems [2][3][4] in which soil phosphorous deficiency is widespread and a serious constraint to yield [5,6]. Sorghum is critical for food security and plays an important role in West African farming systems as it can be produced under poor soil conditions [7]. Nevertheless, soil phosphorous (P) deficiency limits the growth and development of sorghum, reducing grain yield and delaying maturity, which increases exposure to end-of-season drought stress [6,8].…”

“…Sorghum breeding in Mali and Burkina Faso emphasizes the use of Guinea-race germplasm, the race predominantly cultivated in West Africa. Random-mating populations based on West African Guinea landrace varieties have been created as a source of diversity [7,10] and subjected to several cycles of selection for grain yield and key traits for adaptation and farmer acceptability. This work produced novel, dual-purpose (grain plus fodder) varieties with desirable Guinea-race grain, but the genetic gains for grain yield were low.…”

“…A series of BCNAM populations were created in Mali using the pure line variety and successful hybrid male parent "Lata3" as the recurrent parent. The variety "Lata3" was derived from a West African Guinea-race random-mating population [7] and identified through farmer-participatory variety testing in Mali. Furthermore, several donor parents used to create these populations were useful for diversifying the hybrid male parent pool and increasing heterosis with the female pool based Guinea-race materials from Mali and neighboring countries [15,16].…”

QTL mapping and validation of fertility restoration in West African sorghum A1 cytoplasm and identification of a potential causative mutation for Rf2

“…A major challenge with the initial hybrids was their poor and unacceptable grain quality (Toure and Scheuring 1982 ). Recent work in WA to develop both male and female parents using the widely cultivated sorghum Guinea-race germplasm has resulted in hybrids with suitable grain quality combined with yield superiorities over farmer’s local varieties under diverse productivity conditions (Rattunde et al 2013 ; Kante et al 2017 ; Weltzien et al 2018 ). The positive results with these hybrids under on-farm farmer-managed testing, and indications that farmers are starting to adopt these new hybrids (Smale et al 2014 ) justify establishing a full-scale hybrid breeding pipeline to produce hybrids that meet farmers’ demands in this major sorghum producing zone.…”