Sorghum cultivation and improvement in West and Central Africa

The diversity of sorghum cultivated in Africa attests to the African origin of this crop. Ten to 25 or more varieties of sorghum may be cultivated as distinct pure stands in a single village in Mali (Siart, 2008) or Burkina Faso (Barro-Kondombo et al., 2010). In Northern Cameroon, varietal mixtures are cultivated, with each mixture containing 12 varieties on average (Barnaud et al., 2006). Farmers have developed strategies for using varietal diversity to minimize risk and maximize productivity in the context of complex and diverse adaptive challenges, strategies developed over several thousand years of cultivating sorghum. The diversity of sorghum types cultivated reflects the wide and contrasting ecosystems in which it is cultivated and the range of ways it is used (Rooney, 2004)..