Response to anthracnose infection for a subset of Ethiopian sorghum germplasm

Abstract

Forty-two accessions were randomly selected from the Ethiopian sorghum collection maintained by the USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System and were evaluated for anthracnose disease response during the 2004 dry and wet growing seasons in Isabela, Puerto Rico. A resistant response was observed for 20 accessions, with 13 accessions susceptible to the disease for the two growing seasons. This finding would suggest that Ethiopia would be an important source of anthracnose-resistant germplasm for sorghum improvement. Nine accessions showed variation for infection response within and between growing seasons. These accessions also showed low infection severity. Greater infection severity was observed during the dry growing season for the susceptible accessions; however, variation for mean infection severity for these accessions was not significantly different for the two seasons. Approximately 80% of the accessions showed a similar disease response across the two growing seasons.This percentage would suggest that large scale evaluations could be conducted throughout the year in Puerto Rico to screen the more than 7,000 Ethiopian sorghum accessions in the collection for the identification of anthracnose-resistant germplasm.