Evaluation of Colored Grain Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] Genotypes for Yield and Quality Traits

Abstract

Sorghum is a staple cereal food crop of the semi-arid tropics and has nutritional importance. Iron, Zinc and protein contents in grains are important for human health. Keeping this in view, 100 colored grain sorghum genotypes along with four check varieties were assessed for grain yield, Iron (Fe), and Zinc (Zn) content and total protein content and also studied the association among these parameters. The protein, Fe, and Zn content of genotypes varied from 4.0 to 20.10 mg/100 mg, 19.51 to 59.94 mg/kg, and 8.36 to 51.11 mg/kg, respectively. All three biochemical parameters were positively correlated with grain yield. Among biochemical parameters, grain Fe content was positively correlated with grain Zn content (r = 0.9216). Based on the results, it can be concluded that there was more variation in the biochemical parameters studied in the genotypes. The identified high-yielding genotypes with more grain Fe, Zn, and protein can be used in biofortified varietal development, and the genotypes with high nutritional content with low yield can be used in a hybridization program to transfer high Fe, Zn, and protein content to the high-yielding genotypes of sorghum.