The development of multi-purpose sorghum varieties suitable not only for food, but also for feed and other applications became a priority for most of the breeding programs. However, a better understanding of the genetic determinism of stover quality is required. A BCNAM design involving 3 recurrent parents (RP) and 29 donor parents (DP) has been developed in order to provide the sorghum community with a high resolution mapping design and a relevant breeding scheme towards the development of varieties suitable for the soudano sahelian region. The aim of this study was to characterize the parental lines of a BCNAM multiparental design for their main stem composition and histological properties in order to: • Assess the relevance of this genetic design to reach a better understanding of the genetic bases of these traits • Evaluate the effect of the sowing dates, and height diversity on the biochemical composition of the stems • Have a first image of the relationships between stem histological and biochemical traits