Three sorghum varieties released in Nigeria

Farmers with the SAMSORG 47 ZAUNA INUWA variety

Nigeria’s National Committee on Variety Naming, Registration and Release on 26 July 2018, approved the registration and release of two medium-maturing sorghum varieties, SAMSORG 47 as ZAUNA-INUWA, SAMSORG 48 as KAURA BORNU, and an early medium-maturing variety, SAMSORG 49 as CF35:5, in Nigeria.

SAMSORG 47 (ZAUNA INUWA) was developed from indigenous sorghum germplasm materials through pure-line head-to-row selection. It has desirable agronomic traits such as medium and uniform height, long and semi-compact panicles with bold testa-free yellow grain and stay green tendencies. It is suitable for the Sudan and Northern Guinea Savanah zone with a yield potential of 4.8 t/ha.

SAMSORG 48 (KAURA BORNU) was developed from sorghum germplasm materials indigenous to North-Eastern Nigeria. Head-to-row selection was carried out in 2012-2014 focusing on grain yield, uniformity in height, panicle type and grain quality. It has been recommended for cultivation in the Sudan and Northern Guinea Savannah.

Farmers standing with the SAMSORG 48 KAURA BORNU variety

SAMSORG 49 (CF35:5) was obtained from an exchange of exortic sorghum breeding lines from ICRISAT Mali and identified through farmer participatory variety selection for its earliness, medium-sized grain, stay-green tendency during the pearl millet and sorghum improvement (PROMISO) project in 2006-2009 and HOPE I (2010-2015) and HOPE II projects at Kebbi, Kano, Sokoto, Jigawa and Zamfara states. Its earliness comes in handy in hunger interventions since it matures when most other sorghum varieties are yet to mature in the field. It has been released for cultivation in the Sudan-Sahel zone and has a yield potential of 2.8 t/ha.

This work was carried out as part of the Harnessing Opportunities for Productivity Enhancement of Sorghum and Millets II (HOPE II) project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation under the CGIAR Research Program on Grain Legumes and Dryland Cereals (GLDC).