The study of East African grain sorghum samples in the conditions of the Rostov region

Sorghum is one of the main food and feed crops in the world. Rapid population growth in Africa requires a growing amount of local foods such as sorghum. Therefore, breeding work aimed at developing highly productive sorghum varieties and hybrids adapted to the soil and climatic conditions of Africa and the arid conditions of southern Russia is of great urgency. Therefore, it was necessary to identify the adapted samples with valuable economically valuable traits. The current study has been carried out on the experimental plots of the laboratory for grain sorghum breeding and seed production of the FSBSI “Agricultural Research Center “Donskoy”. As objects of the study there have been used the grain sorghum varieties of the National Research Institute of Semi-Arid Resources (NaSARRI) of the Republic of Uganda ‘Seso 1’, ‘Seso 3’, ‘Narosorg 1’, ‘Narosorg 2’, ‘Narosorg 3’, ‘Narosorg 4’, ‘Epuripur’, as well as the variety ‘Zernogradskoe 88’ sown as the standard variety. The study was conducted in accordance with the Methodology of State Variety Testing of Agricultural Crops and B. A. Dospekhov’s Methodology of a field trial. The purpose of the current study was a comprehensive estimation of grain sorghum varieties developed in the research institutions in Uganda under the conditions of the Rostov region to use the selected samples in further breeding work as sources of economically valuable traits. In the conditions of the Rostov region the Ugandan varieties belonged to the group of middle ripening and late ripening varieties. The plant height in the studied varieties varied from 155 to 210 cm. According to the trait “number of grains per panicle” the varieties had a large number of grains (1829–2530 pcs.). The main share of the NaSARRI varieties had a high percentage of raw protein in grain (13.6–14.9%). A low tannin content was established in the varieties ‘Seso 1’ (0.54%), ‘Epuripur’ (0.66%) and ‘Narosorg 1’ (0.71%).