ABSTRACT
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench), is a climate resilient cereal species that displays robust tolerance to a number of abiotic stresses. It is well known as one of the most drought tolerant cereal crop. Considered an old world cereal, sorghum benefi ts from a rich genetic resource diversity that facilitates selection for desirable traits and responses to a number of abiotic stresses (https://sorghumcheckoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ USCP_2012_Henley_Nutrition_Summary.pdf). As an example, sorghums’ extensive fi brous root system allows the plant to extract moisture from deep layers of soil. This enables sorghum to survive some period of drought and resume growth upon rain (House 1985). Sorghum also tolerates fl ood and continue to grow under fl ooded conditions compared to maize (Reddy et al. 2011). The plant produces grain even at temperatures of 40-43°C and at a relative humidity of 15-30% as long as soil moisture is available. But it is not as tolerant to cold climate as maize and grows slowly although some varieties may germinate and grow at 12°C (House 1985). The advent of genome analysis technologies, through the development of DNA markers (including RAPD, RFLP, SSR and SNP) among others facilitated the identifi cation of genome regions and in a number of cases, specifi c genes that contributes or control various agronomic traits including tolerance mechanisms to abiotic stresses in sorghum (Paterson et al. 2005). This chapter reviews various genetic mapping analysis for abiotic stress tolerance in sorghum, i.e., drought, aluminum toxicity and early season cold.
