Sorghum bicolor logogriph,broomcorn, durra, forage sorghum, grain sorghum, great millet, Kaffir-corn, milo, shallu sorghum, sweet sorghum,Milo,sorgo, gros mil, sorgho,daza, sorgo forrajero?

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History:Grain Sorghum (Milo).

Sorghum bicolor Extract Sorghum bicolor Moench photo picture image Farmers on the hot, dry plains from Texas to South Dakota grow and use grain sorghum like Corn Belt farmers use corn. Large acreages of grain sorghum are also grown in Africa and Asia in areas where the climate is too hot and dry for corn.

 During the past 25 years, the grain sorghum acreage in the U.S. has ranged from 15 to 18 million acres per year. Grain sorghum acreage is somewhat greater than acreages for oats and barley, but considerably less than the land area planted to corn, wheat, and soybeans.

 In cooler, more humid regions, corn is usually a better choice than grain sorghum, but renewed interest in grain sorghum occurs whenever hotter and drier than normal growing seasons are experienced.

 Sorghum (Sorghum vulgare Pers.) is indigenous to Africa, and many of today's varieties originated on that continent. Sorghum was also grown in India before recorded history and in Assyria as early as 700 B.C. The crop reached China during the thirteenth century and the Western Hemisphere much later.

 Sorghum was introduced to the United States from Africa in the early part of the seventeenth century. It was not grown extensively in this country until the 1850s, when the forage variety Black Amber (also called "Chinese sugarcane") was introduced by way of France. Since then many other varieties have been introduced from other countries and developed domestically.

 Sorghum was grown primarily as a source of sugar for syrup until the settlement of the semiarid West created a demand for drought-resistant forage crops. By the 1950s, about 90% of the acreage of sweet sorghums in the United States was grown for forage.
 Sorghum bicolor Extract Sorghum bicolor Moench photo picture image

 Currently there are five major types of sorghum grown:

 1) Grain sorghum with dwarf varieties that grow 2 to 5 ft tall for easier combining.
 2) Forage sorghum which grows 6 to 12 ft tall, produces more dry matter tonnage than grain sorghum, is coarse stemmed and used for silage.
 3) Sudangrass, a fine stemmed, short season sorghum grown to furnish pasture or green feed during mid-summer when perennial grasses are dormant.
 4) Sorghum-sudangrass hybrids are a cross between the two forage types that have intermediate yield potential and can be used for pasture, hay or silage.
 5) Sorghum-almum, also called Columbusgrass, sorghumgrass, sorgo negro or sudan negro.

 Sorghum production is concentrated in areas where corn production is limited because the rainfall is insufficient or unfavorably distributed and the temperatures are too high. Thus most of the domestic sorghum acreage is in the southern Great Plains states, with Texas, Kansas and Nebraska the leading producers. However, some sweet sorghum has been grown for syrup or silage in Wisconsin since the state was settled.

 Forage sorghum production has been limited in the Upper Midwest because the crop matures late and, except on droughty soils, does not generally produce as many total digestible nutrients per acre as well-adapted, high yielding corn hybrids. Recently, there has been renewed interest in the crop during seasons of high temperatures and drought.

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citations1.Sorghum bicolor logogriph,broomcorn, durra, forage sorghum, grain sorghum, great millet, Kaffir-corn, milo, shallu sorghum, sweet sorghum,Milo,sorgo, gros mil, sorgho,daza, sorgo forrajero?

last edit date:26th,June.2009.