Growth and Drymatter Partitioning of Sorghum under Moisture Stress Condition

Abstract Field studies were carried out at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, during summer 1988 to find out the effect of moisture stress of growth indices and dry matter accumulation of sorghum (cv. CO 26 ) at three phenophases. Crop under adequate moisture supply, throughout, exhibited greater crop growth rate (CGR) and relative growth rate (RGR) compared to the crop under moisture stress condition. Growth indices were at lesser rate when the crop experienced moisture stress during phenophase I, and subsequently picked up during phenophase II due to adequate moisture supply to the crop. This reflects the ability of sorghum crop to recover from the effects of early moisture stress at later stages. The dry‐matter accumulation in the stem was favoured by adequate moisture while in the leaves it was favoured by moisture stress.