Abstract
Sorghum, a genus having evolved across a wide range of environments in Africa, exhibits a great range of phenotypic diversity and numerous resistances to abiotic and biotic stresses. Sorghum is recognized as a highly productive, drought tolerant, C4 cereal that provides humankind with food, feed, fuel, fiber, and energy, particularly in the semiarid tropics of the world.
Sorghum has been collected and conserved over the past 50 years and numerous international and national collections exist. The major collections have in excess of 40,000 accessions and much of the native diversity of cultivated sorghum is represented. However, much of the diversity of the wild races of sorghum is underrepresented in these same collections. Over the past decade, the major collections have benefited by efforts to better characterize these accessions but these efforts have not significantly increased use of the materials. Therefore, despite a significant number of collections and holdings, much of the diversity of sorghum remains untapped.
Over the past decade, tremendous progress has been made to build the molecular and genomic foundation required to increase our understanding of sorghum diversity in the genome and gene pool and, ultimately, to link this information to crop improvement. Sorghum represents the first crop genome of African origin to be sequenced (Paterson et al. Nature 457:551–556, 2009) and, through coordinated national and international efforts, high-density genetic and physical maps, extensive sets of RFLP and SSR markers, association (Casa et al. Crop Sci 48:30–40, 2008) and diversity panels (Deu et al.Genome 49:168–180, 2006), nested association mapping populations, and other resources are readily available for use for scientific investigations and breeding efforts. The generation and use of these genomic resources have added to our insights about sorghum domestication and diversity. Future studies will enrich our understanding and provide increasing resolution to quantify and use both wild and domesticated sources of diversity in crop improvement.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge Elizabeth Herron in the Office of Research Development at the University of South Carolina for her assistance with editing and fact-checking.
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Kimber, C.T., Dahlberg, J.A., Kresovich, S. (2013). The Gene Pool of Sorghum bicolor and Its Improvement. In: Paterson, A. (eds) Genomics of the Saccharinae. Plant Genetics and Genomics: Crops and Models, vol 11. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5947-8_2
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