Evaluation of Western Ethiopian Sorghum Landraces for Resistance to Striga hermonthica (Del.) Benth

Abstract Striga hermonthica (Del.) Benth is an obligate root parasite that causes severe yield losses in sorghum production in semi-arid areas. It reduces yields in sorghum, maize, millets, and rice crops. Striga resistant or tolerant sorghum would form a great part of an integrated Striga control. Thus, this study aimed to determine the response of 48 sorghum genotypes against artificially infested S. hermonthica under pot and field experimentation. Two resistant (Berhan and Framida), and susceptible Assosa-1, Adukara, and/or ETSL102967 were used as a positive and negative checks. The results showed a high variability among sorghum landraces with respect to the effects of Striga parasitism. Early maturing sorghum landraces have the lowest Striga densities and late maturing sorghum landraces are too susceptible to Striga. Sorghum landraces ETSL102969 was found the most resistant sorghum landrace that shown similar Striga number as Birhan (resistant check). Also, ETSL102970 sorghum landraces was found the second resistant landrace with better Striga resistance than Framida (resistant check). Therefore, it is recommended that using ETSL102969 and ETSL102970 as a resistance source to enhance the resistance of sorghum against S. hermonthica in Ethiopia.