Agricultural News
Sorghum Research Showing Promise
Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:02:31 CST
Sorghum growers may benefit from research being conducted by World food Prize winner, Gebisa Ejeta of Purdue University. Ejeta is working on a project to develop a commercialized cold tolerant sorghum hybrid. The objective of this project, funded by the Sorghum Checkoff, is to transfer cold tolerant genes from a Chinese cold tolerant line to selected sorghum inbred lines to create a hybrid that can germinate in cooler soil. South Dakota sorghum farmer, Jerry VanZee, says - we could get a lot more out of our sorghum if we could plant a few weeks earlier. This type of research will help make sorghum more profitable to grow.
Researchers have found two new genetic crosses that will be advanced rapidly into early generations of what could be a commercialized cold tolerant sorghum hybrid. All of the advanced generations from the summer 2010 research have been planted at the Puerto Rico winter nursery for the winter months.
Gloria Burow of USDA-ARS in Lubbock, Texas, is also involved in cold tolerant sorghum hybrid research. She says, "it is encouraging that we have identified the same specific region of the chromosome as that of Dr. Ejeta's group to study cold tolerance in sorghum." Burow says there is open communication between them and the researchers at Purdue and we are sharing information to further their studies.
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