# Grain Sorghum?



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Will it fit for you?

Regards, Mike

http://www.agweb.com/blog/family-farming-katie-style/is-grain-sorghum-a-good-fit-/


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## Bazooka (Sep 17, 2013)

We could always count on sorghum making a crop when I was growing up. We fed most of ours to our pigs. Farrow to finish. The rest either went to other farmers that needed it for their hogs or to the elevator. It usually sold by the hundred weight, so the price looked high if you didn't consider that, I think a bushel was 58 or 60 lbs. As folks got out of the hog business, milo lost popularity and mostly went away. It was terribly itchy to work with too. They still grow it in western parts of Kansas and Nebraska. In a drought year it would still grow well if the humidity stayed high. Stalks made good winter grazing for cows and good hunting for pheasants.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Used to grow it on our more drought prone soils, had a place that paid a premium for it for bird seed of all things.

Only takes one inch of rain to finish a sorghum crop once it flowers, the stuff did originate in Africa if I remember correctly.

You may think your grain handling equipment, trucks, etc. are nice and tight and don't leak, wait till you handle sorghum and you'll have several WTF? moments.

Takes much warmer ground to get good germination compared to beans or corn, also never seen it actually dry enough in the field to haul straight in so in our location plan on separate drying facilities as we usually cut it right after beans and before corn, have to get it down before the first good snow or it can get ugly in a hurry.

Is the itchiest most irritating stuff I've ever been around, like the red headed step child of a cross between bean dust and oat dust.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

Many farmers around me that raised grain sorghum last yr had to contend with the Sugar Cane Aphid. The aphids even had an ill affect the Johnsongrass!!!!!!


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## aawhite (Jan 16, 2012)

Kansas is still the #1 milo grower in the country. Used heavily in ethanol production here, and there is a strong export market, with terminals shipping to the Gulf or direct rail into Mexico. For many elevators in Kansas, milo will be a premium to corn.

I would also encourage producers to look at other states for potential markets. If you have bin storage, talk to truckers and find out what is moving from other areas back towards your state. This is how we operate cross country grain sales in the elevator industry.

Examples: I connected with a freight company that was moving over a hundred loads of salt a week from the central Kansas area back to Nebraska and further north. They were looking for loads to get them south. One winter I had them move over 500,000 bu. of corn off the farm in south central NE to feedlots in west central KS. Farmer made a premium, we made a few cents for the brokering, and the trucks got their loads.

Sold corn from Hutchinson area deep into Oklahoma panhandle to a couple of feedlots, because I found a freight company looking to bring a certain type of rock back into central KS and needed loads to get down there. 3 loads of corn a week for 6 months at a $.25/bu premium to any other market in Kansas, after freight.

A farmer with grain storage can duplicate what I did for the elevators, just need to find who the truckers are and what they haul thru winter to match up with a new market. Wheat mids/hulls, cotton seed, rock, salt, dry fertilizer are a few options out there. Could be some unexpected stuff: new a freight company that had convertible grain trailers. They hauled grain to central Kansas, dropped the floors converting to a van, then hauled salt/mineral blocks back. I left Cargill before I could use them.


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## panhandle9400 (Jan 17, 2010)

I am planning on putting in 2.5 circles of irrigated this year on some fallow ground.


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