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As with many crops, farmers who grow grain sorghum have to take a variety of issues into account throughout the growing season:. Farmers may use techniques like no-till , crop rotation and sequencing, or irrigation to help ensure good crop growth. They may also use fertilizers, herbicides or insecticides if need be to keep their plants healthy.

If everything goes well during growing season, farmers usually harvest their sorghum in September and October. They have to keep a close eye on their crops to ensure the plants have properly matured before harvesting them. Farmers specifically look at the level of moisture in the grain. As the plant reaches maturity, the kernels dry from top to bottom. They are also worth less money on the grain market. Farmers use a combine with a special header attachment to harvest sorghum.

Sorghum stalks naturally store a lot of sugar, which can be sticky when cut and harm the combine. Excess sugar can also increase the moisture level of the dried grain. From timing to technique, sorghum harvest takes knowledge and skill to get the best possible crop harvested each year. When summer temperatures are higher than normal, or precipitation is lower than normal, later-planted sorghum may yield better.

However, later-planted sorghum runs the risk of getting top yields reduced by an early frost. Not long ago, farmers planted grain sorghum by pounds per acre. That was fine when grain sorghum seed sizes were fairly consistent even among different brands and hybrids.

That's not the case anymore - grain sorghum seed sizes vary widely from hybrid to hybrid. Thus, growers need to pay more attention to planting population.

Set the planter or grain drill to plant seeds per acre, rather than pounds. Skip to main content. Content ID By Bill Spiegel. Read more about Crops. More Crops. This week on the farm with Lee Lubbers. Other perennial weeds such as Canada thistle, milkweed and hemp dogbane should be suppressed the year before sorghum is planted. Several selective herbicides can be used in sorghum. Atrazine can be applied as a preplant incorporated, preemergence or postemergence herbicide.

Application rates are similar to those used in com, as are the concerns of atrazine carryover. If crops other than com will be planted next year, do not use atrazine in sorghum.

On the other hand, sorghum could be safely planted in fields with atrazine residues from previous years. Dual and Lasso can be used as a preplant or preemergence treatment only when sorghum seed is treated with a safener. Your seed dealer may be able to obtain safener-treated seed for you. Dual and Lasso are excellent annual grass herbicides and could be used in combination with atrazine. If incorporated into the upper 2 inches of soil, they suppress yellow nutsedge.

Ramrod is chemically related to Lasso and Dual but can be used preemergence in sorghum without a chemical safener applied to the seed. It controls many annual grasses and can be mixed with atrazine to control a broader spectrum of weeds.

Buctril, Banvel and 2,4-D are labeled for use in grain sorghum for postemergence broadleaf weed control. Their use directions and rates are similar to those for corn. A seed treatment such as Captan should be used to control seed rots and seedling blights. Leaf diseases can be problems in areas with high rainfall and humidity, but generally do not cause serious losses. Planting resistant hybrids, providing optimum growing conditions, rotating with other crops, removing infested debris, planting disease-free seed are all methods which can be used to minimize losses from disease.

Under Minnesota and Wisconsin conditions, the most serious pest problem for grain sorghum growers is likely to be bird damage. Planting larger fields in one block and locating, these away from urban areas or farm buildings may help reduce the problem.

Grain sorghum is resistant to corn rootworms, but may be attacked by corn earworms, aphids, and greenbugs. Nearly all grain sorghum is harvested as a standing crop with a combine.

Combining time will depend on the fall weather and the availability of grain drying facilities. Sorghum grain can be threshed free of the head when the seed Moisture is percent. The seed is physiologically mature at even higher moisture levels. Frost will generally kill the top of the plant and help to lower the moisture content. Some hybrids have a loose, open type head which hastens field drying. Sorghum seed is easily damaged in the threshing operation, especially when the grain is dry.

The combine platform should be operated as high as possible to minimize the mass of stems entering the combine. If necessary, the cylinder speed can be reduced to one-half that used for wheat to prevent cracking the seed. However, grain moisture will normally be higher and faster cylinder speeds can be used. The recommended cylinder speed is R. An average loss of kernels per square foot is equal to one bushel per acre loss. The grain sorghum crop can be harvested for high-moisture grain silage.

When fed to livestock, its digestibility will be increased by grinding or rolling. Grain sorghum can be dried with corn drying equipment. However, because the grain is smaller in size, fans may need to be operated at higher static pressure than used for corn. Also, grain sorghum needs to be somewhat drier than corn for safe storage since there is less air movement through the grain. Grain sorghum yields exceeding bushels per acre have been obtained in Wisconsin Table 2. Yield potential and economics of grain sorghum must be compared to corn to determine whether or not grain sorghum offers an advantage.

On very droughty soils, or if subsoil moisture is very low, grain sorghum may out yield corn. This occurred at the Hancock Research Station in and Table 2. This assumes. When expected corn yields are less than bushels per acre, and the reason for the low yields is moisture stress, grain sorghum may equal or exceed corn grain yields.

However, if corn yields greater than 75 bushels per acre are anticipated, grain sorghum is unlikely to be competitive. The cost of grain sorghum production is about the same as for similar grain-yield production levels for corn.

Therefore decisions to grow grain sorghum depend primarily on relative yield potential compared to corn, and the ability to obtain markets. Since market outlets for grain sorghum are not established in most areas of Minnesota and Wisconsin, local elevators will probably not buy it.

On-farm utilization as feed is the most likely alternative available to most growers. Robinson, R. Nelson, J.