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Tall 3-dwarfs: oxymoron or opportunity to increase grain yield in sorghum?

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Main conclusion

Plant height was positively correlated with grain yield across a large set of 3-dwarf sorghum hybrids and production environments in north-eastern Australia.

Abstract

In industrialised countries, plant breeders tend to select for short plant stature in cereals like wheat, barley and rice, but also grain sorghum. This is mainly to prevent stalk lodging and to allow for machine harvesting. However, this counteracts an intrinsic positive relationship between plant height and yield potential often observed in cereals. We used data from multi-environment breeding trials comprising large sets of female sorghum lines from a range of pedigrees in hybrid combination with five different male testers. The hybrids were grown in 22 different rainfed environments in north-eastern Australia, which allowed us to thoroughly examine the relationship between plant height and yield across a range of productivity levels. Covariate analysis showed that in 38 out of the 90 tested relationships, grain yield was significantly (p < 0.05) positively and in only one case significantly negatively associated with plant height. This strong positive association between the traits was supported by the observation that 87% of the effects were either positive or zero. The effects of height on yield ranged from a decrease of 0.015 t ha−1 to an increase of 0.057 t ha−1 cm−1. The majority of the negative effects were observed in low-yielding trials and the positive effect of height tended to increase with increasing mean trial yield. Opportunities to increase yield potential by selecting for slightly taller sorghum hybrids therefore need to be explored in context with the target environments and in combination with other means to control the risks of lodging.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Australian Grains and Development Corporation (GRDC; http://www.grdc.com.au) and the Queensland Government for funding this research, the public sorghum pre-breeding team for technical support and the private co-operators for providing land to conduct the trials.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), The University of Queensland, Hermitage Research Facility 604, Yangan Rd, Warwick, 4370, Queensland, Australia

    Barbara George-Jaeggli, Sophie Lefèvre-Arbogast & David R. Jordan

  2. Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Agri-Science Queensland, Hermitage Research Facility 604, Yangan Rd, Warwick, 4370, Queensland, Australia

    Barbara George-Jaeggli, Colleen Hunt & Alan Cruickshank

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  1. Barbara George-Jaeggli
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  2. Sophie Lefèvre-Arbogast
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Correspondence to David R. Jordan.

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George-Jaeggli, B., Lefèvre-Arbogast, S., Hunt, C. et al. Tall 3-dwarfs: oxymoron or opportunity to increase grain yield in sorghum?. Planta 253, 110 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-021-03629-w

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