AICRP on Sorghum

Year of Establishment: 2015

About the Scheme

AICRP on sorghum, Chamarajnagar centre established during the year 2014-15 and it is located in zone VI of Karnataka state. This is very unique centre, receives the first rain in the month of April and May (early kharif) and rainfall shows bimodal pattern.

Farmers are growing Sorghum crop as first crop and cultivated area of Sorghum is around 28,256 ha in Gundlupet taluk and part of Chamarajanagar in chamarajanagara district.

Centre has collected one hundred thirty local germplasms, received one hundred seventy germplasms line from the IIMR, Hyderabad and BARC, Mumbai also evaluated all germplasm lines for identification of genotypes suitable for early dual purpose, sweet sorghum, fodder type, shoot fly and midge tolerance and parental line development programme for both kharif and rabi season.

Our centre has released the new single cut fodder sorghum variety CNFS-1 (Chamaraja Nagara Fodder Sorghum-1) and CNGS-1 (Chamaraja Nagara Grain Sorghum-1) grain sorghum variety for Zone 6 of Karnataka and other pipe line varieties and hybrids are in different state level and all india level trials.

Breeding Programme

• Development of varieties / hybrid suitable for early Kharif and Kharif (grain and fodder type).
• Development of dual purpose Varieties and Hybrids.
• Development of Terminal drought tolerant Varieties and Hybrids.
• Monitoring multi location and testing of coordinated trials.
• Participate in Front Line Demonstrations (FLDs) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) and SCSP Programmes.
• Develop and popularise integrated crop production technologies and plant protection practices to major insects and diseases.

Facilities and Conservation of Germplasm

NIL

Crop Production Technologies

Research in the Southern Dry Zone (Chamarajanagara district) shows that, although sorghum is a critical dryland crop, there is a 66–70% potential to increase yield by improving nutrient management, particularly with nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P).

Further, agronomic research work focuses on intercropping to maximize income, such as sorghum-legume intercropping (e.g., with pigeon pea, green gram, black gram, cowpea etc.,), which has been shown to improve green fodder yield significantly in southern districts.

While kharif sorghum areas have decreased, research work is aimed towards adapting improved cultivars and utilizing climate-resilient technologies to stabilizing production under changing rainfall scenarios.

Also, standardization of fertilizers for fodder (single cut & multi-cut), hurda and grain sorghum are being taken up.

Due to the rising cost of chemical fertilizers and labour scarcity, efforts are being made to work on effective herbicides for weed control, soil moisture conservation, precision farming and organic farming studies.

With the changing climatic scenario, agro-meteorological studies are being formulated to correlate weather parameters with sorghum crop performance (e.g., date of sowing, drought occurrence, rainfall pattern etc.,).

Water Saving Technologies

farm pond facility.

Soil Health Management and Nutrition

raise green manuring crops after harvesting sorghum and also application of vermin compost and cow dung compost.

Technologies on IPM

Identified some shoot fly resistance lines.

Collaborations

• BAARC, mumbai

Awards / Accomplishments

nil

Other Activities

Under TSP and SCSP activities Distribution of seeds of High yielding varieties and Hybrids, other agricultural farm inputs to 300 farmers under TSP and SCSP programmes.

In addition to this our centre also organized the training programmes to farmers regarding high yielding, recently released sorghum varieties and hybrids and Advanced agronomical practices.

Ruling Varieties/Hybrids

• Fodder Sorghum- CNFS-1 (Chamarajanagara fodder sorghum -1)
• Grain Sorghum- CNGS-1 (Chamarajanagara grain sorghum -1)

Contact