Mining the Untapped Sudanese Sorghum Feterita Germplasm by Hybrid Breeding to Improve Food Security in Sudan

Sorghum is an important staple crop in arid and semi-arid areas in Sudan.

This crop serves as the primary energy source, protein, vitamins, and trace minerals for millions of people in this country.

Unfortunately, sorghum production is mainly constrained by several biotic and abiotic stresses, particularly from occasional drought and heat stress.

A high-yield hybrid with improved drought resilience is urgently needed to improve productivity and maintain stable profit margins among small-scale farmers.

However, hybrid sorghum has not been widely adopted in Sudan, mainly due to poor adaptation and the lack of farmer-preferred traits in existing hybrids. Feterita is a unique breeding pool for sorghum improvement that only existed in Sudan.

Over 40 million resource-poor people in marginal environments rely on cultivating this breeding pool for traditional food and drink.

Hence, this project aims to identify complementary parental pools (B and A lines) using feterita germplasm to overcome the limitations of the introduced A/B lines and develop the first hybrid through a) Developing and validating KASP markers with fertility restorer genes; b) Marker-assisted backcrossing to develop and validate A1 and A2 elite cytoplasmic male sterility; c) Estimation of genetic diversity and population structure of early-maturing sorghum feterita; d) Exploring heterosis in feterita lines for increased productivity in contrasting environments; and e) Enhance the capacity of Sudan´s institutions.