What do you know about sorghum?

I was excited to stumble into this thread while searching for information on Sorghum. I also live in Nova Scotia, and right on the coast - sounds like we have a lot in common Heather Holm. I have several stalks of what appears to be sorghum that mysteriously appeared in one of the hugle beds. Exciting! It looks to be quite vigorous and loaded with seeds. I am planning to harvest and save the seeds for next year unless advised otherwise. Any feedback will be most appreciated as this plant is completely new  to me.

Last winter I was planning on growing Sweet Sorghum here in BC and wondered if anybody had grown it in Canada. I came across this thread as a guest and was pleased to see it could grow in Nova Scotia.
I purchased some Sugar Drip from seedman.com and planted it next to some Floriana Corn in mid May. Both the Corn and the Sorghum grew well even with the constant haze from the forest fires in BC and Washington state.
I bought a inexpensive hand crank press from Ebay and ran the stalks through the press in late Sept. All told we got 6 quarts of syrup and we use it for baking and on top of pancakes made from the corn. There were plenty of seeds left over for this year and gave some to neighbours the other day and they will have use of our press also.

I joined and posted to thank those who posted so I could learn as well as be a help to somebody else wondering if Sweet Sorghum grows in Canada.

Yay Paul! Thanks for the information on sorghum, and the pictures. The plants I discovered volunteering in one of my beds were only a quarter the height of yours so now I'm wondering! Mini sorghum? Or not sorghum at all? In the meantime I opened the sample of syrup I brought home from Texas and I totally love the taste. It reminds me of the treacle I used to have, growing up in England. Now I really want to produce some but presently the beds are covered with a couple of feet of snow so it's hard to imagine anything growing - just lucky I'm a dreamer. J

Ya'll. I've got a friend here in KY that grows a bunch of Sorghum. They started a new family tradition. Everyone harvest, presses and makes syrup together. Last year they didn't know what to do with the leftover stalks. So a friend of theirs let them dump it all down in a hollar. I was wondering what uses they might be on my permaculture farm for the spent canes. I don't have animals to graze it yet. Mulch? Fibers for cob structures? Will is break down in compost? I'd like to let them dump it all here in about a month if I can use it. Thanks.

Wow!! i was looking for info since I just put in some sorghum seed to soak before planting (not sure what exactly I'm planting it for, I figure the rabbits could eat it if nothing else).
I bought it as birdseed (it's red). I do have a sugarcane press, so I may have to experiment.
Glad for the advice to plant together with legumes, would not have guessed. More peas!

Ray,

I use those large stalks from corn, sorghum and pampas grass as a boundary on the hugels so that the vines (bindweed, honeysuckle, etc) take longer to invade. My hope is that by the time they make it in there, I have long term plantings that will take most of the light. I am trialling comfrey as a border/rhyzome barrier as well, but I don't have enough comfrey yet to do all the hugels.

I will try to take a picture by the hugel where it is still visible.

Tj Jefferson wrote:Ray,

I use those large stalks from corn, sorghum and pampas grass as a boundary on the hugels so that the vines (bindweed, honeysuckle, etc) take longer to invade. My hope is that by the time they make it in there, I have long term plantings that will take most of the light. I am trialling comfrey as a border/rhyzome barrier as well, but I don't have enough comfrey yet to do all the hugels.

I will try to take a picture by the hugel where it is still visible.

TJ, that is a good idea.

So far I do not see much use for the left over canes after processing for juice. I might have to get their left over canes and do some experimentation. I'm thinking send them through the chipper after they have dried out a bunch and see if I can make material than can be spread as mulch to suppress the poison ivy growth in my little patch of woods. A little vinegar and dish soap, plus a heavy coat of chipped/shredded sorgham stalks. That might help. My woods is so overgrown with understory, its impossible to use the area for anything. I'm going to have to get the gravely brush hog in there and then mulch.

The leftover stalks might be good for making a wattle fence. If they retain rigidity after drying, they might be used for making seasonal trellises in the garden.
Also, look into bio-char.

My mother, born in 1918, used to tell me stories of visiting country cousins here in Texas. Sorghum syrup was made on the farm with a mule walking in circles. She thought the end product was delicious.

I just ordered Sorghum seeds from Hope Seeds in Nova Scotia.  I live in Manitoba and plan to grow it next year.  I like your idea of a land race crop.  I tried that with flax this year, unsuccessfully.   I will check back here next summer.

ive grown sorghum a couple of times here in south africa a few notes from my experiance

birds live the white verieties but dont touch the black ones i think because of the higher tannins.

if you just clip off the seed heads they will send out more seed heads meening you can harvest grain for a few months the folowup heads are smaller but there are more of them i harvested about twice as much from these folowup heads than the initial harvest so basicaly 3x my harvest over cutting down the whole plant.

the stalks after presing if you just use a simple roler press are still fairly sweet and the cows still love them where as the sugar cane stems are a bit hard for them.

Here I gather the many uses of sorghum:

Seeds for brewing
Seeds as animal feed and human food
Stalks for syrup
Silage
Biofuel
Chopped stalks for growing winecap mushrooms
Biochar
Crafting (broom/basket/ tray/ fishing floater etc)

I grow the decorative type or broomcorns and they can be used as regular sorghum as well. My chickens love eating the seeds; if I shave the skins off they will eat the sweet pith too; I am albe to pop the seeds in the oven like popcorns.

They like warm temperature and I usually plant them much later in the season, usually in June after harvesting garlic and potatoes.

I saw a documentary about silage sorghum and found it quite interesting. This new variety of of sweet sorghum has a very high brix of 21-24 when the seedheads are filling. But usually farmers harvest the biomass earlier at the vegetative growth phase when the plants reach 2.5 to 3m. At the stage the brix is still at 10-14 with higher protein content in the leaves ( reportedly 21%). The younger plants also have low lignin level and arebmore digestible. If cut several nodes above ground, new shoots will regrow for a second harvest. It's said the yield of biomass is about 3 times of silage corn.

I haven't been about to find the name or source of this variety but I guess all sorghums can be managed in a similar way except with lower yield and less nutritional value. If not grown for fully matured grains, sorghum should be quite easy to grow in area with a shorter growing season like Canada.

r ranson wrote:
Anyone in Canada grown sorghum successfully?

Yes I do. I buy it in Douglas ON, paid about $26/50lb bag and bought 1/2 ton in Sept, pickup in October when I arrived down from Nunavut, and feed it to my pigeons and grow it too (I only feed them whole grains and feed them where I want that grain to grow and they will forage for grain from what grows) and I also use it for cover crop. I just throw it where I want it and enough self seeds. It is very happy with no irrigation and no care. The soil it is in is living soil built from pigeon poop, spent poor quality hay, cardboard, fliers, urine, and green manure and garden debris (leaves, pine cones etc)
My soil is quite acidic and sandy/rocky under the soil building and I am 4a with frost days until 3rd week May at least, short days with tall trees (forest zoned) at 650' (tail end of Gatineau mountain range)

I had a grain sorghum volunteer. It wasn't until very late that I figured out what it was. I've just taken the seed head and was thinking of keeping it for next years seed.
Anything I need to do with the seed head aside from letting it dry in a safe place?

Update:

50 lb bags  sorghum common #1 seed $63.25 each
Red Milo feed grade $24.90

I plant the feed grade as cover crop
I grow a lot of it, but I have maybe 200 square feet of lawn left ,(almost all gone)

Is easier for me to feed the grains green to my flock and buy new locally every fall along with my years supply of feed I keep in galvanized cans (but I have to drive several hours so it's a yearly thing for anything but corn and sunflower .)

Last thing I checked, my supplier is growing their own. I can let you know first week in December if that's changed

Years ago one of our neighbours grew sorghum on a piece of fairly poor ground. We were all surprised how well it did. The next year nothing grew there- the sorghum had sucked the life out of that dirt completely. Mind you, we lived in a place where top soil was on average less than two inches deep.

Dian Green wrote:
Anything I need to do with the seed head aside from letting it dry in a safe place?

I might store it in the fridge if it's small, I find everything wants to eat grain sorghum in my house, no matter how airtight the storage it's always weevil-y.

Great info on this thread. I can add one interesting use for Sorghum is as a weed suppressant in a new no-till system. Often growers will 'till' their 'no-till' beds just once in the beginning and see increased weed pressure. A cover crop of Sorghum, Sorghum-sudan grass, or Sudan grass, is a good option, because these plants exude weed-suppressing allelopathic compounds. One can till, cover crop with Sorghum, then go 'no-till' or 'no-dig' on top of that with good results.

E Sager wrote:

I can add one interesting use for Sorghum is as a weed suppressant in a new no-till system. Often growers will 'till' their 'no-till' beds just once in the beginning and see increased weed pressure. A cover crop of Sorghum, Sorghum-sudan grass, or Sudan grass, is a good option, because these plants exude weed-suppressing allelopathic compounds. One can till, cover crop with Sorghum, then go 'no-till' or 'no-dig' on top of that with good results.

Maybe that's what I'm doing without the initial till, when I use spent red Milo feed grade on new compost rows with some leaves thrown on top?

I've gotten to where the pigeons will sift through fruited tops in a 10" rubber feed platter and get their own, and I leave the rest in place and that's all that grows there except wandering field peas and occasional volunteers like ground cherries

Ra Kenworth wrote:

E Sager wrote:
A cover crop of Sorghum, Sorghum-sudan grass, or Sudan grass, is a good option, because these plants exude weed-suppressing allelopathic compounds. One can till, cover crop with Sorghum, then go 'no-till' or 'no-dig' on top of that with good results.

Ever used winter rye? Dense, at least four or five feet tall, roll it flat just before it has viable seeds. It forms a dense mat that blocks out weeds, protects moisture and takes longer to break down than other cereal straw. Open little places in the mat to plant things like pumpkins, keeps 'em clean, dry and up out of the mud.

Jay Wright wrote:

Ever used winter rye? Dense, at least four or five feet tall, roll it flat just before it has viable seeds. It forms a dense mat that blocks out weeds, protects moisture and takes longer to break down than other cereal straw. Open little places in the mat to plant things like pumpkins, keeps 'em clean, dry and up out of the mud.

Not yet. I still have to try winter rye and winter wheat

One year I got weed seed for free, and if I have the chance I will use it again. Also free sprouted oat: just go get them

Three years after weed seed I have had an explosion of wild strawberry ground cover

The oats I planted against a lean-to to build rain runoff and that has worked exceptionally well

For a year the flock were picking away at both

Here's a larger scale version where they actually planted soy beans and then rolled the rye on top of it. An experiment that I wouldn't expect to do well, but then I've never grown soy beans  https://youtu.be/_D-_XRxuVyk

Me neither. Jay, I don't grow soy beans.

But you're American. I thought growing corn and soybeans was like the law or something.