Germination of Seven Different Sorghum Varieties for Hydroponic Sorghum Forage Production as Feed

This study aims to evaluate the germination and growth rate of seven sorghum varieties, namely KD4, Super 1, Super 2, Pahat, Samurai 1, Samurai 2 and Black Sorghum Rote Island cultivars as a reference for hydroponic sorghum forage production. This research was conducted at the Laboratory of Plant Breeding in the Faculty of Agriculture, Brawijaya University. The experiment used a completely randomized design with the seven different sorghum varieties as treatments and 4 replications. The seven sorghum varieties were evaluated for their germination and growth rate using Rolled Paper Test method in plastic sheet (UKDdp) in a germinator machine. The parameters were the percentage of germination, daily germination rate and percentage of normal shoots. Data were subjected to analysis of variance followed by Duncan's Multiple Range Test. The results showed that the treatments gave highly significant effect (P<0.01) on the percentage of germination, where Super 2 variety showed the highest germination percentage of 95%, daily germination rate of 22.03%, and percentage of normal shoots of 88.00%. While Black Sorghum variety of Rote Island cultivar showed the lowest values for all of the three parameter, i.e. 0%. percentage of germination, i.e. 0%. Black sorghum variety has very hard seed coat that prevent water immersion into the seeds during germination test. Thus, the seeds of Super 2 sorghum variety must be the best seeds variety for hydroponic sorghum forage production.