Development of a Laboratory Screening Technique, Based on Embryo Protein Synthesis, For the Assessment of High-Temperature Susceptibility During Germination ofSorghum bicolor

SUMMARY The capacity of sorghum lines to germinate at high soil temperatures (above 40°C) is clearly related to the temperature sensitivity of embryo protein synthesis. The development and optimization of a simple laboratory technique based on this correlation for the rapid large-scale screening of sorghum lines is described. Embryo-containing half seeds are incubated in the presence of14C-labelled amino acids at different temperatures and the resulting radio-labelled proteins extracted and bound to nitrocellulose discs for counting. The extent to which incorporation of14C-label into proteins is inhibited by elevated temperatures can be used to predict the likely temperature sensitivity of a given line during germination.