Breeding Guinea grass - A review

Guinea grass (Panicum maximum Jacq.) is one of the best forage grasses of the tropics with good yield potential and produces good quality fodder, valued for its productivity, palatability and good persistence. Being an inter-continental crop, there are lots of ecotypes in this crop. Important ecotypes in this crop are Makueni, Hamil, Coloniao and Tobiatum.

Guinea grass evolved in nature as a polyploid apomict with predominance of apospory and pseudogamy. Research work on apomictic Guinea grass, especially on its mode of reproduction indicated an Apomixis Specific Gene (A2–134 cDNA) designated ASG-1. Apomixis-specific molecular markers study with an OPC 4 primer revealed that the apomictic types displayed a specific band 0.9 kb.

Various biometrical parameters revealed existence of considerable variability among the genotypes. Plant height as well as tiller number were reported to have a high direct effect on forage yield. Combining ability studies over seven cuttings for green forage yield, dry matter yield, tiller number, plant height, stem thickness and leaf-stem ratio have shown significant mean squares due to general and specific combining abilities. For reproductive traits, both general and specific combining ability mean squares were significant for seed yield, panicle number per plant, panicle length, panicle branch length, days to flower, days to seed shattering and 100 seed weight.