Important traits in broom sorghum selection for broom yield

In order to evaluate seven native broom sorghum populations and determine effective traits on broom yield, an experiment was conducted in East Azarbaijan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, Tabriz, Iran, in 2014 and 2015 cropping seasons based on randomized complete block design. Analysis of variance showed that there were significant differences among population in 2014 for most traits. The resulted population from selected genotypes had superiority in the mean of many traits. High and low heritability-%89 and %41 - was observed for shoot diameter and leaf number traits, respectively. Path analysis showed shoot fresh weight, flag leaf lengths and peduncle diameter traits had positive significant direct effect on panicle weight. It seems shoot fresh weight can be considered as very important traits in broom yield selection. Path analysis for panicle yield of broom sorghum in pre harvesting from farm or before flowering condition- no need to measure shoot weight, panicle lengths and peduncle diameter- indicated the most positive direct effect belonged to flag leaf lengths, leaf number, shoot diameter and plant height traits, 0.559, 0.231, 0.191 and 0.090, respectively. Therefore, it seems in the early stages of selection and to save cost in plant breeding projects, flag leaf lengths can be considered as a practical index for selecting promising broom sorghum genotypes.