Identification of stable restorers and high-yielding hybrids using diverse sorghum male sterile cytoplasmic sources and established pollen parents under different water regimes

Krishna Kasanaboina; B V Vara Prasad; Sonal Chavan; C V Sameer Kumar; D Saida Naik; D Srinivasa Chary; Vinod Kumar Reddy Yaram; Sunita Gorthy; Ephrem Habyarimana

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e39807

Identification of stable restorers and high-yielding hybrids using diverse sorghum male sterile cytoplasmic sources and established pollen parents under different water regimes

Heliyon. 2024 Oct 24;10(21):e39807. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e39807. eCollection 2024 Nov 15.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, PJTAU, College of Agriculture, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad, 500030, Telangana, India.
² International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), 502324, Patancheru, Telangana, India.
³ SRTC, PJTAU, Rajendra Nagar, 500030, Tealangana, India.
⁴ Department of Crop Physiology, College of Agriculture, PJTAU, Jagtial, Hyderabad, 505529, Telangana, India.
⁵ Department of Statistics and Mathematics, College of Agriculture, PJTAU, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad, 500030, Telangana, India.
⁶ Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Naini Agricultural Institute, Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture Technology and Sciences (SHUATS), Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, India.

Abstract

Sorghum hybrids demonstrated increased productivity and helped offset the decreasing cultivated areas, particularly in Asia. The diversity in cytoplasmic male sterility systems, stability of restorers and high yield of sorghum is an important factor for achieving food security and sustainability. In sorghum, hybrid production has been limited to A1 cytoplasmic source to date, primarily due to limited number of restorers on other cytoplasmic sources. This work aimed at filling this gap through diversifying and assessing the producibility and stability of cytoplasmic backgrounds across environments, evaluating the stability of restorers across cytoplasms and environments, and evaluating the performance of the hybrid F1 products under different water regimes across cropping seasons. The effects of genotypes and interactions between the genotypes and the tested environments were shown visually using GGE biplot, which also categorized the genotypes based on performance per se and stability. Analysis of variance revealed significant (P < 0.001) differences between genotypes, environments and their interaction components for all the plant characteristics studied. The various GGE biplot patterns revealed that the restorers G4 (IS 33844-5), G5 (M 35-1-19), G8 (ICSV 15014), and G10 (ICSR 13009) were stable across environments and cytoplasms. We observed the following order of superiority in cytoplasmic restoration and seed producibility, A₂ >A₁>A₃ >A₄. The A₂ cytoplasm can therefore reliably offer seed producibility advantage to commercial seed producers. Furthermore, the which-won-where model for hybrid grain yield revealed specific adaptations of hybrid genotypes G143, G195 and G215 to first mega environment (E1 and E3), whereas G167, G110, and G112 were adapted to the second mega-environment (E2 and E4). With a GGE biplot goodness of fit of 70 % the best possible yield- and stability-based ranking of hybrid genotypes was G143, G215, G189, G200, G69, G162, G119, G54, and G81. The newly uncovered hybrid products should therefore be considered for downstream testing stages and candidates for release and commercial cultivation. Clearly, this work resulted in novel findings particularly in terms of seed producibility, universal restorers across the 4 cytoplasms and environments, and superior and stable hybrid products, all of which are expected to add value to conventional and heterosis breeding in the process of sorghum cultivar development.

Keywords: Cytoplasmic male sterility; Fertility restoration; GGE biplot patterns; Seed producibility; Sorghum heterosis breeding.