Breeding and Yield evaluation of hybrid sorghum and its production prospects in Ethiopia.

The procedure used in the breeding and evaluating of hybrid sorghum in Ethiopia is described. Out of 170 A and B lines evaluated, 23 exotic A lines have been selected for tests in hybrid combinations. The best available hybrids in the Ethiopian Sorghum Improvement Project have IS10360A,IS10468A, and TX622A as seed parents. Several yellow endosperm R lines from Rasper's nursery have been identfied as the best pollinators for hybrids for the Ethiopian situation. With a mean grain yield of 53 q/ha for eight elite hybrids over three years, 1978 to 1980, atMelkasa, the best hybrids have given double the yield of the variety check, Kobomash 76. Thirteen other hybrids which have been in yield trials for two years at Melkasa have also averaged 53 q/ha of clean grain. In this group also, the best hybrids have given two times the grain yields of the check varieties, Kobomash 76 and Melkamash 79. It is suggested that the prerequisites for making hybrid sorghum a production reality in Ethiopia could be met reasonable well now. It is now a quarter of a century since commerical production of hybrid sorghum was first initiated in the United States where currently nearly 100 per cent of the sorghum grain produced in the country is of hybrid origin. Hybrid sorghums have now spread to many other parts of the world includ. ing Latin America, Southern Africa, and India. Hybrid sorghums grown in Latin America and Southern Africa are said to be mostly of US origin, whereas those grown in India have been bred in India. Hybrid sorghum production in India is now over 15 years old and is now a well established industry. Wherever hybrids are grown it is well known that they contribute towards higher productivity and stability of performance under a wide range of environmental conditions. Much of sorghum growing Africa other than South Africa and Zimbabwe has yet to benefit from the exploitation of hybrid vigor in sorghum. This has been mainly due to the lack of strength in research and seed production capabilities in the national programs along this line. Cur- rently, no where in Ethiopia is hybrid sorghum produced in commerical scale. In the past 50 years or so, several investigators have reported on the presence of significant heterosis in sorghum crosses (1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11). In many areas, due to the use of hybrid seed, sorghum grain yields have doubled (5, 10). Hybrid sorghum has the advantage of giving grain yields higher than varieties both at optimum and stress environments, In fact, under stress environments the percentage increase of grain yield of hybrids over varieties are greater (5). In addition to the vast amount of data on hybrid sorghum research and production available from the US and India, even the limited amount of work on hybrid sorghum elsewhere in Africa give encouraging indications that it is worth exploring the potentials of hybrid sorghum under Ethiopian conditions. After careful considerations of the cumulative experiences of sorghum workers in other countries, the Ethiopian Sorghum Improvement Project (ESIP) launched a hybrid sorghum breeding program for Ethiopia in the mid-seventies. The major objective of this hybrid program has been to breed high yielding sorghum hybrids for the lower altitude ( 1600m) and moisture stress ecological zones of Ethiopia. This paper describes this program, reports on yield performance of selected elite sorghum hybrids developed by the ESIP, and assesses the production prospects of hybrid sorghum in Ethiopia.