Record Details

Simulating the effects of plant traits for increasing grain sorghum in waterlimited environments: a case study of West Africa Sudano-Sahelian region

OAR@ICRISAT

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/10721/
 
Title Simulating the effects of plant traits for increasing grain sorghum in waterlimited environments: a case study of West Africa Sudano-Sahelian region
 
Creator Akinseye, F M
Ajeigbe, H A
Birhanu, Z B
Angarawai, I I
 
Subject Sorghum
West Africa
 
Description The need to improve the performance of dryland crops in semiarid
environments cannot be over emphasized, because growth
and development of such crops are often limited by moisture
and other abiotic factors. Sorghum production in commercial
situations requires maximising grain yield on limited available
water resources, which requires maximizing the ratio of yield
to evapotranspiration. In this study, a system analysis was
undertaken to identify those plant traits that might be altered
to improve sorghum yield in a moisture-limited environment.
APSIM model was used to simulate sorghum (Sorghum bicolor
L. moench) for 30-year period at two locations (Kano, Nigeria
and Bamako, Mali), characterized by high inter-annual rainfall
variability and evapotranspiration in the Sudano-Sahelian
region of West Africa. Since sorghum is known to be better
adapted to drier environments, a number of individual plant
traits were adjusted in the calibrated APSIM sorghum-module
for the two selected varieties. In the tested environments, it
was found that decreasing leaf size and increasing seed growth
both resulted in decreased yield while the ratio of grain yield to
evapotranspiration was decreased. Combining sorghum plant
traits in the model resulted in increased yield and the ratio of
grain yield to evapotranspiration when the average for all the
years simulated. In addition, the simulated grain yield show
decline up to 25% in Bamako, Mali and 35% in Kano, Nigeria
for both varieties. These results indicate future adaptations
strategy to climate variability and change for sorghums variety
is required while maintaining improving soil quality in a
continuing process.
 
Date 2017-02
 
Type Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/10721/1/269.pdf
Akinseye, F M and Ajeigbe, H A and Birhanu, Z B and Angarawai, I I (2017) Simulating the effects of plant traits for increasing grain sorghum in waterlimited environments: a case study of West Africa Sudano-Sahelian region. In: InterDrought-V, February 21-25, 2017, Hyderabad, India.