Screening of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L) genotypes under various levels of drought stress

Sorghum is an important fodder crop and plays an important role in the Pakistan dairy industry. High yielding and superior quality sorghum varieties should be produced to meet the domestic needs. In arid and semiarid regions, drought is a major and serious constraint to sorghum production and adversely influences sorghum growth and germination. There are many approaches to combat the drought stress. Among these approaches breeding of crops contributes towards increase in yield under stress condition like drought stress by making the plant tolerant against stress. Ten genotypes of sorghum were evaluated at seedling stage to determine the genotypic variation among them on the basis of tolerance against drought stress and impact of drought on fodder quality. Three levels of water (100%, 75%, and 50% field capacity) were applied to the genotypes. The experiment was carried out in wire house following a triplicate completely randomized design with factorial arrangements. The data were recorded after 20 days of sowing on following traits such as root and shoot length, root shoot fresh and dry weight, leaf area, crude protein, relative water content, total ash contents and chlorophyll contents. Significant differences were found among the genotypes for all traits. The genotypes NARC-11 followed by Sorgh-11 gave better response in all levels of drought stress while F-114 gave poor response in all levels of drought stress.