Landraces are the varieties nurtured and cultivated by the farmers through traditional method of selection over the decades. The “landrace” is a primitive cultivar grown by farmers and their successors since ancient times. We explored seven states and collected 674 accessions. Out of which, 138 are popular landraces. These collections have specific traits and traditional utilities. Moli jowar from MP fetches higher prices due to attractive grains. The irungu cholam from Tamil Nadu yields best quality porridge and mathappu cholam is for preparing a jelly like food called khali. The beed maldandi and bidri from Maharashtra produce best quality jowar roti or unleavened bread. Karnataka's kodumurugu jola and allin jola are used to make laddus and papads, respectively. The allur jola from Karnataka is for pops (allu). The pachcha jonna from Andhra Pradesh, barmuda local, deshi chari and gudli local from Rajasthan and bendri dagdi and khondya from Maharashtra are excellent fodder types. Valsangh maldandi local, Vadgaon dagdi maldandi, tongraligaon maldandi, tongraligaon dagdi, sultanpur local dagdi, sultanpur maldandi, harni jogdi (dagdi), harni jogdi, chungi maldandi, musti local (Maldandi), chungi kuch-kachi, baddi jowar, chakur maldandi from Maharashtra, and sai jonna from Andhra Pradesh are considered by the farmers as drought tolerant landraces. These landraces were characterized both for qualitative and quantitative traits. The correlation coefficients of the quantitative traits revealed highly positive correlations among many characters. These trait linkages can serve as best source information on these materials to breed high yielding sorghums targeting food traits and industrial utility.
Characterization, Evaluation, Germplasm, Sorghum, Landraces
