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Physiological and Morphological Features Determining the Performance of the Sorghum Landraces of Northern Nigeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 October 2008

D. J. Flower
Affiliation:
West African Sorghum Improvement Program, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), 419 Yanyawa Avenue, Kano, Nigeria

Summary

Sorghum landraces from contrasting districts of northern Nigeria were grown during the 1990 rainy season to describe their physiological and morphological features. Changes in their dry matter production and yield could be predicted from thermal time to flowering (based on response to a fixed daylength) and partitioning indices. Many other morphological and physiological features, such as light-extinction coefficient, light-use efficiency, plant height, leaf area and leaf number, were either stable or varied systematically with time to flowering. Grain yields of early maturing lines were limited by low light interception from flowering to physiological maturity and those of later maturing lines by highly site-specific drought stress.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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