Evaluation location: Puerto Rico, United States
In the spring of 2002, the sorghum core collection was evaluated for ergot (Claviceps africana) resistance. Artificial inoculations were conducted by spraying panicles with a suspension of ergot conidia (1x106 conidia/ml). Panicles were bagged for 7 days to promote infection with the evaluation conducted approximately 20 days after inoculation. The number of infected florets per panicle was used to determine the percent infection with an average of five panicles being evaluated per accession. The average percent infection was determined for each accession and this value was used to assign the ergot rating score for the accession.