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ARS Home » Plains Area » College Station, Texas » Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center » Crop Germplasm Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #426781
Research Project: Modern Breeding Approaches for Sorghum Hybrid Improvement and Molecular Analysis of Grain Traits Critical to End-use Quality

Location: Crop Germplasm Research

Title: Dissection of genetic architecture of inheritance and genomic selection for grain quality traits in sorghum hybrids across multi-environment trials

Author
item SAPKOTA, PRADIP - Texas A&M University
item FONSECA, JALES - Texas A&M University
item PERUMAL, RAMASAMY - Kansas State University
item KLEIN, PATRICIA - Texas A&M University
item Klein, Robert
item AWIKA, JOSEPH - Texas A&M University
item ROONEY, WILLIAMS - Texas A&M University

Submitted to: Crop Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/29/2025
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Grain quality in sorghum hybrids has received far less investigation than other small grains including wheat and barley. While there are many reasons for this lag, new high throughput approaches to grain quality measurements could represent a paradigm shift to accelerate the rate of improvement in sorghum grain quality traits. To address this issue, we have developed equations for Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy to rapidly measure grain starch, protein, fat and fiber, and used this information to elucidate the inheritance of these grain traits in sorghum hybrids. Utilizing both genetic and environmental data, we were to predict the quality performance of offspring from specific parental lines grown in a series of field locations. This study provides the necessary knowledge to breeders who work to exploit genetic and environmental data in improving grain quality of hybrid cereal crops including sorghum.

Technical Abstract: Sorghum is the fifth most important cereal grain crop worldwide and is used as both feed and food grain. While grain composition and quality are important, it has traditionally been a lower priority relative to grain yield. If methods to predict composition and quality are available, this could be added to the selection criteria with minimal addition of time or cost. Herein, the genetic inheritance of sorghum grain quality traits was assessed in hybrids obtained by crossing ten elite inbreds from Texas A&M and Kansas State University following a factorial mating designs. Grain samples from these 100 hybrids were collected from 10 evaluation environments and then analyzed for starch, protein, fat, and fiber using Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy. In addition, grain samples were characterized for three physical factors: kernel hardness index (KHI), kernel diameter (KD), and kernel weight (KW). Environmental effects were a major source of variation for starch, fat, and fiber, whereas genetic effects were prominent for protein, KHI, KD, and KW. Starch, fiber, KHI and KD predictions were more accurate than those for protein and fat. Finally, multi-trait genomic selection models that included grain yield and days to anthesis improved prediction accuracies up 16% for grain quality traits over single trait models. In conclusion, these genomic selection models have potential to effectively and concurrently select for grain composition and quality factors in sorghum.