Living organisms use day-length to synchronize their daily and seasonal activities. Photoperiod-sensitivity is a spectacular expression of this phenomenon affecting reproduction, daily leaf movements or seasonal stem growth, dormancy and leaf fall.

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Living organisms use day-length to synchronize their daily and seasonal activities. Photoperiod-sensitivity is
a spectacular expression of this phenomenon affecting reproduction, daily leaf movements or seasonal stem
growth, dormancy and leaf fall.
In the West-African savannahs the duration of the
rainy season is linked with the latitude, and the
movements of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone
(ITCZ) – being gradually shorter from the south to
the north of the area.
Sorghum and pearl millet have been cultivated in
West Africa since millennia and have consequently
co-evolved with their natural pests. The pest
pressures suffered by both crops grown in the wet
and warm climate of the rainy season are very high.
Therefore, the crops must be sown within the days
at the time of the last large rainfall of the season.
last two months in the far northern areas, and
seven months in the far southern zones covering
all the intermediate durations of the intermediate
regions. The photoperiod-sensitivity allows the
species to cover this whole range, since there are
no late varieties that would be photoperiod-insensitive. The cycle duration within the species is lengthened
Alteration of the days and nights synchronize a
modify the duration of the vegetative phase, from
emergence of the plantlet until the reproduction.
Thus sorghum and pearl millet are classed as short-
is triggered from July to August, when days are the
longest. The triggering was strictly repressed from
March to June and allowed from the beginning of
July, at a date that is genetically controlled. The
Led by Light in West Africa

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only environmental signal whose annual evolution can
explain this pattern is the daily change of the sunset
hour. Flowering would be inhibited by sunset delay
(more than 24 hour-cycle), during spring, and allowed
24 hour-cycle), during summer. The tropical landraces
would therefore respond more to the daily variation
of the sunrise and sunset hours than to the duration
between the two events.
Altered development and growth
During the long vegetative phase of the West-African
sorghum and pearl millet landraces, the rate of the
leaf initiation by the apex and the rate of the leaf
appearance from the whorl after they grew inside
the sheaths, are reduced by half at the onset of the
internode elongation, around the appearance of about
the 15th leaf. The pattern is observed for sowings in the
rainy season, before 1 July. These rates also depend
on the sowing date, being minimal for sowing at the
beginning of June and then increasing from July to
September. Due to the internal co-ordinations, the rate
of the stem elongation is thus reduced for plants sown
early, while the growth of roots remain unchanged
irrespective of early or late sowing. Since the stem is
the heaviest organ in the tall tropical sorghums, instant
time for roots to explore a larger volume of soil. This strategy explains the rusticity of sorghum (known for
growth of the plants during the stem elongation.
Breaking the low yield stability?
The nodes of the panicle are produced at the same rate as the leaf, thus showing dependence on the
sowing date. Since the growth rate is parallely changed, the time for
date. Consequently, the potential size of the panicle remains stable for plants sown within the rainy season,
Thus the West-African landraces possess a multitude of adaptable characters needed in their environment,
including the quality and taste of their grain. But their strong defect is their inability to respond to the
increased soil fertility, linked with their yield stability. To improve the situation, the potential amount of grain
per area has to be increased, possibly through the increase of the plant density, while keeping the other
characters unchanged. Knowledge newly acquired on different aspects of the photoperiod-sensitivity will
step will be to understand the genetics of the threshold that gives each landrace a particular calendar date
for panicle initiation in order to derive varieties adapted to a range of latitudes from the best varieties and
hybrids bred from the African diversity.
0 30 60 90
30
20
10
0
Numberofleaves
Days after emergence
+ Leaves initiated by the apex
+ Leaves appeared from the whorl