Agronomic performance of grain sorghum hybrids under water restriction and its correlation to seedling phenotyping

Drought-tolerant sorghum cultivars with good response to water supply is essential for cultivation in areas subject to long dry spells. Therefore, it is important to develop phenotyping methods with the capacity to evaluate the performance of these materials as early as possible. Therefore, the objective of this work was to evaluate the agronomic performance of grain sorghum hybrid in environments with and without water restriction and to correlate it to root morphology traits of seedlings. Twenty-six grain sorghum hybrids were carried out in two field trials, one with and one without post-flowering water restriction. The same genotypes were evaluated in cone-tainers, with and without water restriction until the stage of four leaves, where root morphology traits were evaluated. The hybrids 1716049, DKB540, 1718028, 1720052, 1720029, 1719036, 1716011, 1719029, 1716045, BRS310, 1719026, 1718036, 1G282, 1716041 and 1719052 showed higher grain yields, with flowering varying from medium to early and plant heights within the desirable range for the grain market. The total root surface area (SA) and the surface area of very thin roots (SA1), which are characteristics of root morphology, showed a positive and significant correlation with grain yield in field tests.