THE MAIN TRENDS AND RESULTS OF GRASS SORGHUM BREEDING

Abstract

Grass sorghum is cultivated especially for hay, green feed (chop) and haylage. Sudan-grass and sorghum-Sudan hybrids belong to grass sorghum. The purpose of the work was to determine the main problems of the grass sorghum breeding and to present the results in FSBSI All-Russian Research Institute of Grain Crops after I.G. Kalinenko. The main problem in theSudangrass breeding is the development of early maturing varieties ofSudangrass with high tillering capacity, good leaf formation, high productivity and qualitative green chop. In the sorghum-Sudanhybridization the main task is to grow highly productive hybrids of various term of vegetation with qualitative green chop on the basis of early maturing, low-height, resistant to lodging and cold CMS-lines and pollen parents. To solve these tasks we developed the working collection of early maturing samples with good tillering capacity, with large leaf formation, which are going to be introduced into the hybridization. Among the new varieties of grass sorghum we identified ‘Vesta’, ‘Miledy’, ‘Krasava’ and ‘Arkadiya’ due to total green chop productivity for two cuttings; and ‘Arkadiya’ and ‘Krasava’ due to the yield of digestible protein, fodder units and contents of exchangeable energy per kg of absolutely dry matter. New sorghum-Sudanhybrids have been developed. The hybrids ‘APV 1115xZemlyachka’, ‘A-63xKrasava’ and ‘Germes’ were identified due to green chop productivity; ‘Germes’, ‘A-63x Arkadiya’ and ‘APV 1115xZemlyachka’ were identified due to the productivity of fodder units and contents of exchangeable energy per kg of absolutely dry matter. The new varieties and hybrids of grass sorghum allow obtaining 55-56 and 68-76 t/ha of green chop for two cuttings respectively.

Keywords

• grass sorghum
• sudan grass
• sorghum-sudan hybrid
• productivity
• green chop