Sorghum bicolor is an ancient plant that has been cultivated in North-eastern Africa for over 5000 years [1]. This is a cane like grass, up to 6 meters tall with large branched clusters of grains. The individual grains are around 3-4 mm in diameter and vary in colour from white, red, brown, yellow, purple, to black. The leaves resemble those of maize and grow rapidly. Sorghum grains of differen...

Information about the potential for crop–wild hybridization is needed to understand how crop genes, including transgenes, affect the population genetics and ecology of sexually compatible relatives. Transgenic sorghum is under development for use by traditional farmers in Africa, the center of origin for sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench], but systematic surveys of the current extent of cont...

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor Moench) is the fifth most produced cereal worldwide. However, some varieties of this cereal contain antinutritional factors, such as tannins and phytate that may form stable complexes with proteins and minerals which decreases digestibility and nutritional value. The present study sought to diminish antinutritional tannins and phytate present in sorghum grains. Three di...

Ethanol production from mixtures of sweet stem sorghum juice and sorghum grain was investigated under normal and very high gravity (VHG) fermentation conditions. Fermentation was carried out using Saccharomyces cere6isiae yeast strain N96 at 30°C. For VHG fermentation, sucrose was added to the sweet sorghum juice to obtain a concentration of 34 g per 100 ml of dissolved solids. Fermentation was...

Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L) Moench] is the fifth most important cereal crop in the world; however, it has a wide range of other applications that are being explored with worldwide interest in renewable resources. The USA sorghum germplasm collection contains over 41,000 accessions that represent landraces and cultivars from over 115 countries. Traditionally, this collection has been evaluated ...

The Ma, gene is one of six genes that regulate the photoperiodic sensitivity of flowering in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor [L.] Moench). The masR mutation of this gene causes a phenotype that is similar to plants that are known to lack phytochrome B, and masR sorghum lacks a 123-kD phytochrome that predominates in light-grown plants and that is present in non-magR plants. A population segregating fo...

Striga hermonthica is a widely spread root parasitic weed on cereals in Sub Saharan Africa including Sudan. The most important hosts comprise sorghum, millet and sugar cane. Host specificity and existence of two distinct strains on sorghum and millet were previously reported. Reports on a third strain specific to maize are controversial. The present study was undertaken to investigate anatomica...

Grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) crop yield is significantly compromised by high temperature stress-induced male sterility, and is attributed to reduced cell wall invertase (CWI)-mediated sucrose hydrolysis in microspores and anthers leading to altered carbohydrate metabolism and starch deficiency in pollen (Jain et al., 2007). Sorghum plants were grown under season-long ambient (30/20 degrees C...