National Research Centre for Sorghum, All India Coordinated Sorghum Improvement Project, IARI Regional Station, Rajendranagar Hyderabad-500 030, A. P., India
1Present address: Vice-Chancellor, Marathwada Agricultural University, Parbhani-431 402 (India)
*This contribution is the XXXIII part of the series on “Genetic analysis of some exotic X Indian crosses in sorghum”.
A diallel set of crosses among recently developed high lysine and agronomically desirable plump and shrivelled parents was examined together with the corresponding F2 and back cross generations for protein and lysine content. The shrivelled X plump crossed seed become plump exhibiting xenia effect. The reciprocal differences were also significant. Non-additive gene action was predominant for protein as well as lysine. The shrivelled-seeded parents were better general combiners than the plump types. ‘P 721’ was found a better parent for transference of protein and lysine together compared to the rest of the plump parents. ‘P 721’ as a female parent improves protein while as a male tends to increase lysine in crosses particularly with shrivelled parents. Compared to the F2, the back crosses generally tended to increase protein percent with concurrent decrease in lysine. Some plump seeded segregants combining 10 to 16 percent protein and 2–7 to 3–9 percent esimated lysine values have been isolated.
