Abstract

                                Improving sorghum cultivars for postrainy season adaptation is crucial toensure food security in dry regions of India. Postrainy season sorghum isprimarily used as a food owing to its good grain quality and also the mainsource of fodder quality especially during dry seasons. Hence, the presentinvestigation was carried out with ten elite sorghum hybrids along withthree controls (M 35- 1, Parbhani Moti and CSH 15R) at three locations viz.,International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT),Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth (MPKV) and Marathwada AgriculturalUniversity (MAU) during the postrainy season, to identify the best performingsorghum hybrids for postrainy season adaptation. The best performinghybrids for grain yield across three locations were ICSA 502 × SPV 422 (2.4t ha-1), 8712 (2.1 t ha-1), ICSA 38 × SPV 422 (2.1 t ha-1), ICSA 84 × SPV 1411(2.1 t ha-1) and XSR401 (2.1 t ha-1)compared to the control CSH 15R (1.8 tha-1), Parbhani Moti (1.5 t ha-1) and M 35-1 (1.5 t ha-1). The selected hybridswere 3 to 4 days earlier than M 35-1 and at par with CSH 15R. Substantialvariability observed for 100 seed size (2.4 to3.5g) and grain luster (score1 to 2) among the hybrids. The tested hybrids had shootfly dead heartspercentage ranging from 53 to 75. Based on the number of nodes infected,infection length and percent soft rot, two hybrids (ICSA 675 x SPV 1411 andICSA 675 x ICSV 700) appeared tolerant to charcoal rot with <1 internodeinfection, length of infection <5 cm and <10% soft rot.

Key words : Charcoal rot resistance, G x E interaction, grain luster, shootfly resistance