Sorghum is a strategic food-security and livestock-feed crop in Africa, and molecular characterization of its germplasm underpins genetic diversity assessment and hybrid parent selection. This study evaluated 106 sorghum accessions (23 A-lines, 28 B-lines, 32 R-lines, and 23 hybrids) from ICRISAT and Seed Co gene banks using 79 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based Kompetitive Allele-Specific PCR (KASP) markers. Genetic diversity, population structure, cluster analysis, and analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) were assessed to support heterotic grouping. Gene diversity ranged from 0.23 in R-lines to 0.32 in hybrids, and polymorphic information content from 0.19 to 0.26, indicating moderate marker discriminatory power. Population structure analysis identified an optimum of K = 3: Cluster 1 comprised paired A- and B-lines forming a putative maintainer pool, Cluster 2 was dominated by R-lines forming a divergent restorer pool, and Cluster 3 formed a second seed-parent subgroup. AMOVA confirmed highly significant differentiation (ΦST = 0.55; p < 0.001), with molecular variance partitioned among the three clusters (44.0%), among individuals within clusters (45.2%), and among breeding-line types (10.8%). These findings provide a genomic framework for assigning sorghum accessions to putative heterotic groups and accelerating hybrid parent selection for climate-resilient sorghum production.

The analysis of genetic gain and changes in economic traits among modern and older cultivars is important to estimate breeding progress, evaluate the effectiveness of selection methods, identify optimised and neglected attributes, detect trade-offs, and inform strategies in crop improvement programs. This meta-analysis analysed global genetic gain and changes in seed yield, yield-related traits, and seed compositional attributes in soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.). A meta-database comprising 272 genetic gain data points recorded from 29 studies and 2555 mean performances captured from 34 research papers was compiled from research reporting cultivars released globally between the 1920s and 2010s. The mean values extracted from these studies were subjected to the R-Software analysis of variance (ANOVA) to reveal the effects of year of cultivar release and production region on the studied agronomic and compositional attributes. Boxplots were constructed to visualise data distribution and variability, and Pearson correlation and principal component analysis (PCA) were performed to examine inter-relationships among the measured traits with year of cultivar release and production region. Significant differences (p < 0.001) in mean performance were found among decades of cultivar release for seed yield (SY), number of seeds per pod (NSPod), days to flowering (DTF), days to maturity (DTM), and total biomass (TB). Cultivars released in the 2000s attained the highest mean SY of 3737.62 kg ha⁻¹, compared to 2156.08 kg ha⁻¹ observed for varieties released in the 1960s. Annual mean increases for SY ranged from 1.75 to 47 kg ha⁻¹year⁻¹, driven primarily by improvements in number of seeds per plant (NSP), NSPod, plant height (PH), DTF, TB, and hundred seed weight (HSW). Conversely, seed protein content (SPC) declined across most breeding programs, while seed oil content (SOC) showed only modest improvement, and no consistent genetic gains were documented for micronutrient traits, including iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), calcium (Ca), or phytic acid (PA) content. Phytic acid, a potent chelator of essential minerals and a known inhibitor of protein digestibility in monogastric species, represents a critical but largely untracked compositional target in global soybean breeding. The absence of PA as a systematically monitored trait constitutes a significant gap in the literature, with direct implications for the nutritional quality of improved cultivars. Future breeding programs should adopt an integrated approach that simultaneously targets high SY, enhanced micronutrient bioavailability, and reduced antinutritional factor concentrations to advance both agricultural productivity and global food and nutrition security.

Grafting is an important technique in watermelon production systems to enhance biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, fruit yield, and quality. Grafting watermelon using compatible rootstocks of closely related Citrullus species offers opportunities for the development of watermelon crops possessing unique product profiles. Therefore, the objective of this review is to appraise the utilities of citron watermelon as a potential and candidate rootstock for grafted watermelon to develop unique graft combinations possessing market and consumer-needed attributes. We conducted a search in various databases, including Web of Science, Science Direct, and Scopus, and accessed the relevant peer-reviewed publications and composed five sections for the review. The first section outlined the benefits of citron watermelon rootstock on grafted watermelon against biotic stress tolerance. The second section discussed the impact of citron watermelon rootstock for inducing abiotic stress tolerance in grafted watermelon. Thirdly, citron watermelon rootstock/watermelon scion on fruit yield is discussed. The fourth section reviews fruit quality of grafted sweet watermelon as affected by citron watermelon rootstocks. Lastly, the genetic resources of citron watermelon and their attributes for rootstock applications in grafted watermelon are presented. The findings highlight citron watermelon as a promising alternative rootstock for improving resilience and fruit quality in grafted sweet watermelon production systems.