Sorghum

A collection of diverse germplasm is the foundation for the genetic improvement of crop plants. Sorghum is a versatile crop and a staple food for the poorest parts of Africa. It is a crop endowed with one of the highest genetic diversity. Worldwide, there are close to a quarter million sorghum accessions collected and maintained by national and international genebanks. The two biggest sorghum germplasm holders are the US Department of Agriculture and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics. Together they maintain about 1/3 of the world’s sorghum germplasm collection. Majority of accessions have been characterized, and accessions with specific attributes have been identified. Researchers can access these data and select accessions to meet their project needs. More importantly, core and minicore collections or genotype-based reference sets, representing diversity present in the entire germplasm, have been formed, and using these subsets new sources of variations have been identified for use in sorghum improvement programs. Genome-wide mapping experiments revealed marker–trait associations for agronomically useful traits