Patterns of human consumption of sorghum are well documented. Much less is known about the industrial utilization of the crop and the market opportunities this presents for poor sorghum producers. This study ocuments the emerging patterns of industrial utilization and provides evidence that between 10-40% of rainy-season sorghum is used for nonfood uses. Postrainy-season sorghum utilization remains solely for food purposes as it is not price competitive as an industrial raw material.

One hundred and fifty-six sorghum germplasm accessions that were identified resistant to grain mold in 1988 were reevaluated during the 2006 and 2007 rainy seasons in grain mold nursery at ICRISAT, Patancheru, India to confirm their resistance and characterize them for various physio-morphological traits that are likely to be associated with grain mold resistance. The visual panicle grain mold rating (PGMR) of the 156 test accessions varied from 1 to 3.5 (on a 1–9 scale) compared to 8.5 to 9.0 of the susceptible checks.

A study was undertaken to assess and analyze the seed viability data of 36,483 sorghum germplasm accessions conserved as active collection at ICRISAT genebank, Patancheru, India. The viability tests were conducted for seven years. The period of storage was less for freshly regenerated accessions while for majority of the accessions (35,221) it ranged between 5 and 21 years. The seed viability of 34,894 accessions (95.6% of the total tested accessions) was >85%, a minimum standard for orthodox seeds for conservation as active collection in international genebanks.