AGRONOMIC VARIABILITY OF SORGHUM (SORGHUM BICOLOR) GENOTYPES WITH DIFFERENT LIGNIN CONTENT ASSESSED FOR BIOMATERIAL PURPOSES

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) is a crop for potential development and cultivation in Indonesia because of its high tolerance for planting on marginal lands. The sorghum plant can serve as food, feed, bioenergy, and renewable materials. Sorghum exhibits numerous phenotypes; therefore, it is crucial to determine their suitability for various purposes. The ideotype of sorghum genotypes for biomaterial purposes is a recognized genotype with high lignin content and biomass. The Indonesian Agency for Research and Innovation has identified sorghum landraces with different lignin content in their germplasm. The agronomic parameters evaluation of these genotypes determined their biomaterial suitability purposes. The presented study showed that sorghum genotypes with different lignin content levels have variable biomass (plant height, stem diameter, leaf weight, and stem weight) and yield (panicle weight, length, and hundred-seed weight) attributing traits. The enhanced stem weight is the main contributor to total biomass in these sorghum genotypes. Stem weight positively correlated to a high lignin content and considerable broad sense heritability estimates. Therefore, these traits can become selection criteria for choosing sorghum genotypes for biomaterial purposes. The sorghum genotypes KS and G181 showed ideotype suitability for biomaterials.