Introgression of QTLs for Drought Tolerance into Farmers’ Preferred Sorghum Varieties

Andekelile Mwamahonje, John Saviour Yaw Eleblu, Kwadwo Ofori, Tileye Feyissa, Santosh Deshpande, Ana Luísa Garcia-Oliveira, Rajaguru Bohar, Milcah Kigoni and Pangirayi Tongoona
Additional contact information
Andekelile Mwamahonje: West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), College of Basic and Applied Sciences, University of Ghana, Accra 00233, Ghana
John Saviour Yaw Eleblu: West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), College of Basic and Applied Sciences, University of Ghana, Accra 00233, Ghana
Kwadwo Ofori: West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), College of Basic and Applied Sciences, University of Ghana, Accra 00233, Ghana
Tileye Feyissa: Institute of Biotechnology, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa P.O. Box 1176, Ethiopia
Santosh Deshpande: International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru 502324, India
Ana Luísa Garcia-Oliveira: Excellence in Breeding (EiB) Platform, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), ICRAF, Nairobi 00621, Kenya
Rajaguru Bohar: CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB), CIMMYT, ICRISAT Campus, Hyderabad 502324, India
Milcah Kigoni: Department of Crop Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Pangirayi Tongoona: West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), College of Basic and Applied Sciences, University of Ghana, Accra 00233, Ghana

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-14

Abstract: Sorghum is a major staple food crop for the people in semi-arid areas of Africa and Asia. Post-flowering drought is a global constraint of sorghum production. The study aimed to improve stay-green (STG) characteristics of farmer-preferred sorghum varieties in Tanzania using marker-assisted backcrossing. A total of 752 individuals representing five BC 2 F 1 populations and their parents were genotyped using previously reported KASP markers linked with STG 3A and STG 3B quantitative trait loci (QTL). In the BC 2 F 1 populations, the maximum number of individuals with heterozygous alleles were observed in S35*Pato background (37) whereas only seven individuals derived from the B35*Wahi parents’ background contained heterozygous alleles. Of the 30 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers, favourable alleles were observed at 18 loci in BC 2 F 1 populations. In the BC 2 F 1 generation, the highest (0.127 kg/panicle) grain yield was observed in the B35*NACO Mtama 1 background population. The genotypic analysis revealed the presence of favourable alleles in homozygous conditions at markers loci associated with STG 3A and STG 3B QTLs in BC 2 F 3 populations, suggesting successful introgression of STG QTLs from the donor parents to the recurrent parents. Across water irrigation regimes, the highest (0.068 kg/panicle) mean grain weight was observed in the genotype NA316C. Therefore, our study demonstrated the utility of marker-assisted backcrossing for drought tolerance improvement of locally adapted sorghum varieties in Africa.

Keywords: STG; post-flowering drought tolerance; genotyping; single nucleotide polymorphism; marker-assisted selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/9/883/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/9/883/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:11:y:2021:i:9:p:883-:d:635868

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().