Breeding of grain sorghum in the Rostov region

Abstract

Grain sorghum is the most essential fodder and food crop with a range of advantages. The purpose of the study is to reveal the features of grain sorghum's seed-growing and to carry out the analysis of varietal composition, the amount of planted seeds according to the categories, and of the areas planted with sorghum in the Rostov region in 2012-2014. There is a low amount of areas planted with sorghum and they don’t exceed 170 000 ha in Ru ssia, with no more than 60 000 ha in the Rostov region. One of the main reasons of insufficient distribution of the crop are the difficulties in seed growing, namely a late maturation of seeds (September, October), which impedes harvesting and reduces the quality of sowing characteristics. In the Rostov region it’s possible to obtain high quality seeds if apply high agricultural technology, compl y with the rules of seed-growing and choose proper varietal composition. A significant part of the varieties and the hybrids of grain sorghum (48.9%) included in the State Register of breeding achievements has been recommended for cultivation in the North-Caucasus region. The varieties of FSBSI All-Russian Research Institute of Grain Crops named after I.G Kalinenko occupy the largest part (51.3-73.3%) of all the areas planted with sorghum in the Rostov region. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of the Rostov region there is an increase of the amount of sown grain sorghum seeds of different categories from 2 950 hwt in 2012 to 11 100 hwt in 2014. It leads to significant increasing of areas planted with sorghum in the Rostov region from 14 500 to 58 300 hectares.