Screening of Sweet Sorghum (Sorghumbicolor (L.) Moench) Varieties for Sugar and Biomass Production

Abstract

Sweet sorghum has elicited the interest of breeders due to its capacity to provide renewable energy products, industrial commodities, food and animal feed. Whereas the technologies to process sugar products from sweet sorghum exits, the constraints for its large scale cultivation are the limited availability of genotypes suited to different agro-climatic conditions in Sub-Sahara Africa. Eighteen varieties obtained from ICRISAT, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, Argentina and United States of America were used in this study to identify the stable genotypes, assess their potential across environments and examine their genetic relationships with respect to sugar and biomass. The field experiments were undertaken in four locations between April and September 2012. The interaction between genotype and location showed a significant influence in all the traits studied. Genotype ICSV 93046 and IS 2331 registered the highest mean in the traits studied across the four environments.