# Nitrosorg : A research program dedicated to develop tools for improving grain quality (protein content and digestibility) and adapted to poultry feeding

Nancy Terrier, Fabien de Bellis, Angélique Berger, Caroline Calatayud, Jean-François Rami, David Pot, Hamza Mameri, Marie-Hélène Morel, E. Recoules, Angélina Trotereau, et al.

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## ► To cite this version:

Nancy Terrier, Fabien de Bellis, Angélique Berger, Caroline Calatayud, Jean-François Rami, et al. Nitrosorg : A research program dedicated to develop tools for improving grain quality (protein content and digestibility) and adapted to poultry feeding. 3. European Sorghum Congress 2021, Oct 2021, Toulouse, France. s.n., 1 p., 2021. [hal-05178898]

HAL Id: hal-05178898

https://hal.science/hal-05178898v1

Submitted on 23 Jul 2025

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# Nitrosorg : a research program dedicated to develop tools for improving grain quality (protein content and digestibility) and adapted to poultry feeding

N. Terrier¹, F. De Bellis¹,², A. Berger¹,², C. Calatayud¹,², J.F. Rami¹,², D. Pot¹,², H. Mameri³, M.H. Morel³, E. Recoules⁴, A. Trotereau⁴, D. Gourichon⁵, Q. Deveau⁶, P. Jeanson⁶, J. Alcouffe⁷, P. Dufour⁷, S. Melkior⁷, E. Pampouille⁸, L. Bonnal⁹,¹⁰, D. Bastianelli⁹,¹⁰

(1) UMR AGAP Institut, Univ Montpellier, CIRAD, INRAE, Institut Agro, F-34398 Montpellier, France

(2) CIRAD, UMR AGAP Institut, F-34398 Montpellier, France

(3) INRAE, UMR IATE, Université de Montpellier, INRAE, Institut Agro Montpellier, France

(4) INRAE, Université de Tours, BOA, 37380 Nouzilly, France

(5) UE PEAT, INRAE, UE PEAT Centre Val de Loire 37380 Nouzilly, France

(6) Eurosorgho, Domaine de Sandreau, 31700 Mondonville, France

(7) RAGT2n, Site de BOURRAN, 12033 Rodez, France

(8) ITAVI, Institut Technique de l'Aviculture, 37380 Nouzilly, France

(9) CIRAD, UMR SELMET, Montpellier, France

(10) SELMET, Univ Montpellier, CIRAD, INRAE, Institut Agro, Montpellier, France

## Congress : Third edition of the European Sorghum Congress. October 12th-13th, Toulouse, France

The NitroSorg project is funded by CASDAR, Ministère de l'Agriculture et de l'Alimentation, France. It involves INRAE and CIRAD through the participation of the AGAP, IATE, BOA research units and the PEAT Experimental Unit, the Eurosorgho and RAGT2n seed companies, and the technical institute ITAVI. Although the SELMET research unit does not benefit directly of financial support of the project, it provides its expertise on feed quality phenotyping tools to the consortium. Nitrosorg will begin in 2022 and will last 42 months. It brings together a multidisciplinary consortium of biologists, geneticists, breeders, biochemists and poultry feed specialists to better understand the establishment of sorghum grain quality for poultry feeding and contribute to the development of breeding tools to optimize breeding efficiency for this target. Indeed, the low digestibility of sorghum grain proteins by gastrointestinal proteases, which has the particularity of decreasing even further after cooking, represents an important obstacle to a wider use of sorghum for feed but also for human nutrition. This low digestibility can be attributed to the interaction of proteins with other grain compounds such as starch or tannins, but is mainly related to the structure and properties of the storage proteins of sorghum grain (kafirins).

One of the objectives of this project is to develop high-throughput characterization tools for the protein content and digestibility, but also starch and tannin content and endosperm texture that can affect this digestibility. The consortium will mobilize these tools to characterize the current European varietal offer, a panel representing the worldwide diversity, and the parental lines of the partner's breeding programs. Finally, we will carry, on a smaller panel of genotypes, an analysis of kafirin composition, and an exhaustive analysis of *in vitro* and *in vivo* protein digestibility (as part of poultry feeding).

These analyses should allow us to assess the relevance of the high-throughput screening tools developed and will lead to the definition of the target ideotypes for poultry feeding. In the long term, these results will contribute to the development of grain sorghum varieties with a better protein content and digestibility, and therefore an improved nutritional value.

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