INHERITANCE AND IMPROVEMENT OF PROTEIN QUALITY AND CONTENT IN SORGHUM BICOLOR

THIS WAS A REGULAR EVAL. THE PROJ OFFICER VISITED WITH RESEARCH PERSONNEL AND OBSERVED EXPERIMENTS IN THE LABORATORIES AND FIELDS. SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS WAS MADE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH LYSINE SORGHUM LINES WITH BETTER ENDOSPERM CHARACTERISTICS. MUTANT INDUCTION WAS EFFECTIVE IN GENERATING SEVERAL MUTANTS WITH IMPROVED PROTEIN QUALITY. ALSO, 2 MUTANTS WITH HIGH LYSINE, VITREOUS ENDOSPERM AND GOOD AGRONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS WERE IDENTIFIED. AN EXHAUSTIVE SURVEY OF 1300 ETHIOPIAN VARIETIES WAS COMPLETED AND EVALUATED FOR PROTEIN QUALITY & QUANTITY, TANNIN CONTENT, SEED SIZE AND EVIDENT SEED QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS. MENTION WAS MADE IN THE CONTRACT WITH PURDUE UNIVERSITY TO THE TRANSFER OF RESEARCH RESULTS AND MATERIALS TO LDC"S. HOWEVER, THIS AVENUE HAS ITS LIMITATIONS SINCE MANY LDC"S DO NOT HAVE QUALIFIED PERSONNEL TO CARRY-OUT THE BREEDINGS PROGRAMS.