Abstract:

Chilling injury can lead to yield reduction due to the damaged bud and seedling. In order to solve this problem and meet the demand of cold-tolerant materials for breeding, cold tolerance of 238 sorghum varieties were evaluated at germinating stage and seedling stage. 15 and 11 cold-tolerant sorghum varieties were selected for germinating stage and seedling stage, respectively. IS-2867 from India and TC1383-2, E671 from China were divided into first degree of cold-tolerant materials at both the germinating stage and seedling stage. Due to the features of cold tolerance, TC1383-2 as restorer lines in China had a great utilization value in cold tolerance breeding. The results showed that there was difference in cold tolerance among landraces, improved varieties in China and foreign varieties. There were relatively high proportion of cold-tolerant materials in landraces at germinating stage and seedling stage. It indicated there was great potential for cold tolerant materials exploiting in landraces of china.