Genetic Divergence Studies in Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) Land Races for Yield and Yield Parameters

Sorghum is the third most important cereal crop cultivated extensively in India after wheat and rice. Sorghum grown in rabi season is characterized by its excellent grain quality, exclusively utilized for human consumption and hence fetches higher market price as compared to kharif. Normally sorghum is consumed in the form of Roti, unleavened bread, but now days it is also consumed as hurda (roasted grains separated from sorghum panicles at dough stage) in Maharashtra region. Hurda (sweet grain sorghum) fetches higher price as compared to normal grain sorghum thus benefiting farmers and consumers. Traditionally Maldandi and Gulbhendi are used as hurda purpose genotype which has less sweetness and difficulty in threshing at dough stage (40 to 60% grain recovery). So there is need to develop genotypes suitable for table purpose sweet grain sorghum (hurda) having easy threshability (90-100% International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Special Issue-6 pp. 393-399 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com