Abstract:

Based on authors’ research results and taking maize as the main reference crop, the paper discussed the yield performance, water utilization and drought resistance of sorghum under drought stress environment. Sorghum is regarded as a crop having strong and comprehensive ability of coping with drought, especially low water consumption and high water use-efficiency characteristics. The drought tolerance of sorghum is significantly higher than maize, millet and alfalfa. Sorghum is a typical drought-resistant model crop, which has important values for production and research. The paper also discussed the reasons for the sharp declining in total planting areas of sorghum, and pointed out that as a multifunctional crop possessing high stress resistibility, sorghum can be used for food, fodder, the production of beverages, as well as biofuels, which indicates its favorable developmental prospects. To bring more land under cultivation for sorghum at the regions where the rainfall is lower than 450mm and heat is satisfiable for growth, and strengthen the investigations about drought-resistant mechanism in whole and drought-resistant genome were proposed.

Key words: sorghum')">sorghum, drought resistance, drought tolerance, water utilization, yield performance