Genetics of Starch Content and its Correlations with Agro-morphological Traits in Sorghum

Sorghum can be an alternative to corn for industrial uses, especially in drought prone areas of the world. Sorghum cultivars with high potential of grain and starch yields are needed to continuously meet the industrial demands. We have studied the genetics of grain yield and starch content of sorghum to decide the breeding procedure to develop suitable cultivars for starch industry. The genetic material from 8 x 8 diallel (28 F-1 and 8 parents) was grown in a randomized complete block design, with three replications at Directorate of Sorghum Research, Hyderabad, India. Observations were recorded on seven agro-morphological and two grain quality traits including grain yield and starch content. Correlation studies revealed that the grain hardness was negatively correlated to starch and positively correlated to grain yield, panicle weight and days to flowering. Variance due to specific combining ability effects was greater in magnitude for both starch content and grain yield. Bi-parental crossing in F-2 will help in getting pure lines with high starch content and high grain yield. The parents chosen for breeding program need to be good combiners for starch and grain yields to obtain superior hybrid. One MS line, 422B was a good combiner for grain yield, high starch content and 100 grain weight, and had good per se performance.