Sheila Steinburg, age 12, of Cleveland, Ohio, for her question:
HOW IS SORGHUM USED?
Sorghum is the name of a group of tropical grasses that originally came from Africa and Asia. Now in many parts of the world where the summer climate is warm, farmers grow sorghum for forage, which is food for horses or cattle, and also for syrup, grain and bloom fiber.
More than 20 million acres of sorghum are planted in the United States each year, with most of it growing in the Great Plains region.
All sorghums fall into four main groups: grain sorghums, sweet sorghums, grassy sorghums and broomcorn.
The common varieties of sorghum have thick, solid stalks and look like corn plants. But their flowers grow in branched clusters at the tips of the stems. Farmers plant and grow sorghums in much the same manner as they do corn.
Grain sorghums are grown especially for their rounded, starchy seeds. The grain serves as a substitute for corn in feeding animals. Some grain sorghums grow as much as 15 feet tail. Plants have been produced in varieties that grow from two to five feet tall and that can be harvested with a grain combine.
Farmers feed the grain sorghums to livestock or make the entire plant into silage.
In India, Africa and China, the grain is grown and made into pancake or mush as food for man. Common grain sorghums include durra, milo and kafir.
Sweet sorghums, or sorgos, have sweet, juicy stems. They are grown especially for the production of sorghum syrup. This syrup is made by pressing the juice out of the stems with rollers and boiling it down to the proper thickness.
Animal feed and silage can also be made from sweet sorghums.
Grassy sorghums are used for green feed and hay.
Broomcorn is a kind of sorghum grown from the brush or branches of the seed cluster.
Grassy sorghums grow quickly and may reach 10 feet in height. It serves as excellent summer pasturage.
Johnson grass, a perennial sorghum, grows as a weed in the southern United States. It resembles Sudan grass, but it spreads by creeping rootstocks. Johnson grass is a pest on land needed for cotton or other row crops. But it makes excellent cattle feed or hay.
Sudan grass is a sorghum hay plant that the Department of Agriculture introduced into the United States in 1909 from Khartoum, Sudan. It was first tested in Texas and gave excellent results. Farmers planted this grass on vast areas of land in the South and Southwest.
Eventually Sudan grass spread to nearly all parts of the country. It is one of the best dought resisting plants known to American farmers.
Sudan grass has a fibrous root system. It is an annual, which means that seed must be planted every year. Farmers grow the grass stock for feed and for its seed. Sudan hay has a higher feeding value than timothy.