Seed consortium to bring improved sorghum to Indian farmers post rains

To make quality seeds of improved sorghum easily accessible, a consortium of institutions is taking up 3000 tons of seed production this year to supply more than 10% of India’s farmers, who are often deterred from cultivating improved sorghum owing to non-availability of seed.

Post-rainy sorghum is grown on 3.5 million ha in India. Although prized for its grain and fodder, in the past few decades, terminal drought stress, low temperatures at flowering and farmers’ preference for the bold, lustrous white grains in adapted landrace cultivars limited genetic variability in sorghum. This, coupled with limited efforts for hybrid development, had resulted in a low acceptance (20%) of improved sorghum cultivars in India.