YIELD STABILITY, PLANT HEIGHT AND FLOWERING OF EXPERIMENTAL AND COMMERCIAL SORGHUM HYBRIDS

Abstract

Stability of grain yield, days to flowering, and plant height of 49 sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L . Moench) hybrids were evaluated in a uniform trial conducted over 13 locations of the North and El Bajio regions of México in 1985. The purpose of this study was to identify and classify the genotypes according to its stability parmeters, to analize the possible relationship with its parental
lines, and to compare the performance of experimental hybrids with respect to commercial ones. Yield response of the commercial
hybrids WAC 698, Inia RB 3030, Inia RB 3006, Inia BJ 84, Inia BJ 85, Inia BJ 83 and WAC 692 indicated that they were stable and consistent; 32 experimental hybrids of the 41 evaluated were also classified in this category. Considering the three characters
under evaluation (yield, daya to flowering and plant height), only the commercial hybrid Inia BJ 84 and 22 experimental hybrids were stable and consistent; in this group, the genotypes that showed the highest yield potential were the commercial hybrid BJ 84 and the experimental hybrids RB-110 x 200, RB-106 x 11 and RB-104 x 200. Results indicated that in the set of stable and consistent experimental hybrids the male parental lines 200 and 11 were more frecuent than others; meanwhile, the restorer lines 5 and 25 were involved in the less stable experimental hybrids. The advantage of liberating wide adaptad sorghum hybrids is discussed in terms of increasing hybrid seed availability of those produced by INIFAP.