Development, Distribution and Adoption of Brown-Mibrib Forage Sorghum in Central America.

The productivity of the Central American livestock industry is hindered by issues which include paucity of credit, inappropriate infrastructure, and limited quality and quantity of forage or silage.  Feed supply and quality are of critical importance; sorghum and maize play a major role in meeting the feed requirements of dairy cattle in most crop-livestock farming systems in the region.  In addition, the tropical environment hosts significant pest and pathogens that attack and reduction both yield and quality if they are not managed and the seasonality of rainfall limits forage production during the dry season.  To improve forage sorghum quality, a breeding initiative to integrate the brown midrib trait into sorghums adapted to Central American was started at the Centro Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria y Forestal (CENTA) in El Salvador in collaboration with the US-AID funded INTSORMIL project.  The goal of this program was to develop a bmr sorghum cultivar adapted to Central America.  From this program, several bmr sorghum cultivars were tested and released throughout the Central American region.  These cultivars possess the unique combination of agronomic adaptation, biomass and grain yield as well as improved forage quality due to the presence of the brown midrib trait.  As cultivars, producers can save seed for replanting.  These cultivars were designed and deployed, with wide acceptance, to provide small livestock producers and dairies in Central America with access to sorghum forage with improved forage quality without sacrificing dry matter yield, grain yield or grain quality.