Acta Agriculturae Zhejiangensis ›› 2026, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (8): 1717-1728.DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1004-1524.20250492

• Review • Previous Articles    

Research progress on sorghum grain weight

WANG Yao1,2(), SHI Linyong2,3, ZHANG Heng2, ZOU Guihua2, ZHU Ying2,*()   

  1. 1 College of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Zhejiang A&F University, Hangzhou 311300, China
    2 State Key Laboratory for Quality and Safety of Agro-Products, Institute of Virology and Biotechnology, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou 310021, China
    3 College of Life Sciences, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 310018, China
  • Received:2025-07-18 Online:2026-08-25 Published:2026-09-14

Abstract:

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench), as the fifth most important cereal crop worldwide, plays a significant role in addressing global food shortages. Breeding high-yield and high-quality sorghum varieties has become a core objective of modern sorghum breeding. Grain weight is one of the three major determinants of sorghum yield, and increasing grain weight through genetic improvement has become an important approach to enhancing yield per unit area. Therefore, strengthening research on the morphological and physiological processes of grain development, the genetic mechanisms underlying grain weight, and the exploration of grain weight gene resources is essential for breeding high-yielding varieties. Grain formation involves a series of coordinated physiological and biochemical metabolic networks and is a complex quantitative trait controlled by multiple genes. This paper reviews the morphological and physiological processes of sorghum grain development and the genetic characteristics of grain weight traits, summarizes the progress in mapping and cloning of quantitative trait loci (QTLs)/genes associated with sorghum grain weight, and identifies homologous genes of rice grain weight genes in sorghum. The aim is to provide a basis for future cloning of sorghum grain weight genes, genetic improvement, and molecular design breeding, thereby facilitating the transformation of high-yield breeding from traditional “experience-based breeding” to targeted and efficient “precision breeding”.

Key words: sorghum, grain weight, physiology, genetic analysis, gene mapping and cloning

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