Author(s): OLIVEIRA, I. C. M.; GUILHEN, J. H. S.; RIBEIRO, P. C. de O.; GEZAN, S. A.; SCHAFFERT, R. E.; SIMEONE, M. L. F.; DAMASCENO, C. M. B.; CARNEIRO, J. E. de S.; CARNEIRO, P. C. S.; PARRELLA, R. A. da C.; PASTINA, M. M.

Summary: Biomass sorghum has emerged as an alternative crop for biofuel and bioelectricity production. Fresh biomassyield (FBY) is a quantitative trait highly correlated with the calorific power of energy sorghum cultivars, but alsohighly affected by the environment. The main goal of this study was to investigate the genotype-by-environmentinteraction (G × E) and the stability of sorghum hybrids evaluated for FBY across different locations and years,using factor analytic (FA) mixed models and environmental covariates. Pairwise genetic correlations betweenenvironments ranged from -0.21 to 0.99, indicating the existence of null to high G × E. The FA analysis unveiledthat solely three factors explained more than 79% of the genetic variance, and that more than 60% of theenvironments were clustered in thefirst factor. Moderate correlations were found between some environmentalcovariates and the loadings of FA models for environments, suggesting the possible factors to explain the high G× E between environments clustered in a given factor. For example: precipitation, minimum temperature andspeed wind were correlated to the environmental loadings of factor 1; minimum temperature, solar radiation andaltitude to factor 2; and crop growth cycle to factor 3. The latent regression analysis was used to identify hybridsmore responsive to a set of environments, as well as hybrids specifically adapted to a given environment. Finally,FA models can be successfully used to identify the main environmental factors affecting G × E, such as minimumtemperature, precipitation, solar radiation, crop growth cycle and altitude.

Publication year: 2020

Types of publication: Journal article

Unit: Embrapa Maize & Sorghum

Keywords: Bioenergia, Melhoramento Genético Vegetal, Sorghum Bicolor