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Continue Expanded Grain Sorghum Hybrid Testing—West Texas
This project is a renewal/refinement request of numerous objectives and sorghum test sites in West Texas that were initially funded by USCP in 2009. In particular, this includes regions of Texas that are underserved by Texas AgriLife, including the Rolling Plains and Concho Valley, where in each case no field testing on grain sorghum had [...]
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Investigating automatic irrigation scheduling and quantifying water use efficiency and yield for limited and fully irrigated and early and late maturing grain sorghum
This proposal is submitted as a continuing research project for automatic irrigation scheduling of deficit irrigated grain sorghum and its impact on water use efficiency. Investigators collaborating on this project have high levels of expertise and experience in areas of irrigation engineering, soil science, plant physiology, automatic irrigation scheduling, crop water use measurement and estimation, [...]
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Enhancing sorghum yield and profitability through efficient nitrogen management
Though assumed to be 50% when making nitrogen recommendations, the actual Nitrogen Use Efficiency/percent N recovery found in Kansas varies widely from a low of <40% to over 60%. Quantitative knowledge of the expected NUE from alternative N management strategies, or changes in NUE that could be expected by adopting different strategies under different production [...]
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Update Publication on Growth, Development, and Nutrient Uptake of Sorghum
Efficient management practices aimed at improving productivity and profitability for any crop require an adequate understanding of its growth, development, and nutrient uptake patterns. The most comprehensive publication on sorghum growth and development (How a Sorghum Plants Develops) has served scientists, students, extension agents, and producers over many decades and has been extensively cited in [...]
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Development of forage sorghum tissue testing for efficient fertilization
Nitrogen fertilizer costs have fluctuated wildly in the past few years. Sorghum silage is an attractive crop because it requires less fertilizer than corn silage. However, fertilizer guidelines are not available for forage sorghum production in the desert southwest. In order to develop these guidelines, we propose to conduct a nitrogen fertilizer rate study in [...]
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Sequential Sampling and IPM Decision Aids for Headworm in Grain Sorghum
The United States produces the more sorghum of any other nation, and most of that production is in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. Sorghum headworm is an economically important insect pest of sorghum throughout United States often ranked 1st or 2nd in importance among the myriad of insects that feed on sorghum. Sampling for headworm [...]
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Potential Sources of Ergot Resistance
The emergence of the disease ergot in the US over the past decade has created problems for both the sorghum seed industry and producers. Although Claviceps africana, the causal organism does not produce toxins like some ergots, infection does reduce yields and the syrupy honeydew that it produces can clog combines. Because it infects only [...]
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Identifying genetic and structural sources of stalk rot resistance in diverse sorghum germplasm under dryland production
In Kansas, Fusarium stalk rot and charcoal rot are the primary stalk rots that cause yield loss and lodging in sorghum. Fusarium stalk rots (caused by Fusarium spp. including F. thapsinum, F. proliferatum, and F. andiyazi) are important when high temperatures and drought stress occur during head initiation and caryopsis formation followed by exposure to [...]
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Study of genetic and physiological characteristics associated with improved nitrogen use efficiency and drought tolerance in sorghum
Nitrogen is one of the essential mineral nutrients required for successful production of grain and biomass crops. Most agricultural soils contain low amount of nitrogen and hence require supplemental nitrogen applied in the form of fertilizer for optimal productivity. But almost all of the previous studies have shown that most crop plants utilize less than [...]
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Identifying and developing new drought tolerant sorghum germplasm
Post-flowering drought tolerance (the “stay-green” trait) is an essential trait for increasing the production of sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] in increasingly variable climates. Previously, methodologies for identifying the nonsenescent (stay-green) trait required the right intensity of drought stress at the right developmental stage to visually evaluate lines in the field. Field-based evaluations of drought [...]