Correlation analysis for shoot/root parameters under polyethylene glycol (PEG) induced water stress in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) genotypes

Abstract

The genetic potential was evaluated for thirty sorghum genotypes for drought tolerance based on shoot/root parameters. The traits considered as shoot length, root length, fresh root weight and dry root weight under polyethylene glycol (PEG) induced water stress. These genotypes exhibits significant variation for the traits under considered based on analysis of variance estimation. In addition to this, the traits exhibit highly significant association between one another. The traits like fresh root weight (rg= 0.84 and rp=0.85) had highest genotypic and phenotypic association with dry root weight, followed by shoot length with root length (rg= 0.75 and rp=0.78), root length with fresh root weight (rg= 0.76 and rp=0.75), root length with dry root weight (rg=0.64 and rp=0.65), shoot length with fresh root weight (rg= 0.61 and rp=0.65) and shoot length with dry root weight (rg=0.58 and rp=0.62). This suggests the possibilities of improvement of these characters through selection for drought tolerance breeding programme.