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 Slicker than a Yes album. | From all the posts about how it sucks to harvest, itches you to death, what it is used for? Feedstuff? Crushed for oil? We don't have much variation of crops here. Just curious. |
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 Wheatley, Arkansas | Feed |
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 So. IL | http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/sorghum.html |
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 Brazilton KS | It's kinda a poor stepchild of corn. Used to be a lot fed to cattle and poultry in our marketing area. Now almost everyone is growing corn and there is plenty of corn to go around and milo has actually became hard to find, pretty much everyone has switched to corn. If I recall principles of livestock feeding correctly milo is approximately 86% of the feed value of corn if ground. If flaked, popped, or otherwise heat processed it is roughtly equivilent to corn. |
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 Nth New South Wales Australia | Same reasons we grow it here in Australia too Rich. |
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| Nth New South Wales Australia | Yep,most of the corn grown in Oz would be under irrigation.Sorghum yields vary a lot and is only grown in the states of New South Wales and Queensland as these two states get summer rain(sometimes)and have the right soil types. Yields would range from below 50bu/ac to 160bu/ac in favoured areas.Best crop I have grown was 80bu/ac as an average,but long term would be around 50odd.This season with sorghum at $6.25/bu Aus you don't need a big yield to pay on broadacre.Drought has driven up price as demand for stock feeds is high and stocks are low. We don't plant unless there is 3 ft of moisture in the profile,it gets grown in rotation with wheat,barley,chickpeas and oilseeds. Mike. |
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| Martinsville, Ohio | Always wondered what one is... Collegeboy, if you don't want to itch then never let your dad to talk you into baling soybean stubble in small squares to feed the cows... That was so bad even He couldn't tolerate it... Ed Edited by Ed Winkle 1/17/2007 05:36 |
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| Rich, don't you feel milo gets no respect? In my area there has been a lot of switching to corn going on. I had no milo 2 years ago, very bad drought and dryland corn only averaged 65 bu/acre. Neighbor across the road had milo that made over 100. Last year I went back to milo and had excellent milo. Most dryland corn was last year again disappointing. The same type weather last year as the year before. Very dry, then when the corn was shot it started raining and milo was great. It is a wonderful crop in my opinion. I think it is almost the same feed value as corn, it certainly is much more than 86 per cent of corn. It does depend some on what animal it is being fed to. Another thing I have noticed is that in the past milo did not have the top end yield of corn in a good year. It still doesn't have quite the yield under very good conditions, but the gap has narrowed a lot.l |
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| Southeast MN | I thought combining windrowed barley that had been rained on 3 times in a 403 with no a/c or blower fan would make a fellar dirty and itch more than bean straw. My little bro would wear his ski goggles to keep the black dust out of his eyes. I'm glad we didn't have digital cameras back then to document all the bonehead stunts we pulled.....couldn't let my kids see that stuff.Edited by Dave Frisch 1/17/2007 07:04 |
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| Martinsville, Ohio | They are all so bad it doesn't really matter Dave but I personally have never done anything worse than bale soybean straw, but the cows would tear the barn down to get to it! We would cultivate 100 ac of curvey rowed corn with a 2 row cultivator. You would get so sleepy you would wake up when you heard the corn tearing out. A gas tractor gets awful hot in the afternoon at 80-90 degrees. Dermatologist says that is where you get those lesions that cause skin cancer. Be sure to get checked out.... |
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| NC KS | Milo is closer to 96% of the feed value of corn by the book but judging by the local markets it must be better. Some of our close by terminals pay more for it than they do for corn. I think the reasons are chickens like it and milo is not GMO in any way, shape, or form. Corn is the "glory" crop that gets a lot of attention, milo pays the bills. Milo was over a 100 this year and corn was 70-80 for me. |
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 Macon, IL | Saluki here Ed. Still get down for games now and then. Egyptian Dog. |
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| Cambridge, southwestern Nebraska | Aside from cattle feed, the birdfood market takes a considerable amount. Mexico imports quite a bit of milo. It can be used in the production of ethanol. It is a good drought tolerant alternative crop to corn. |
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| Dills, FL | here there is quite a few semi loads spread with fertilize spreaders to feed quail. North Florida quail plantations. |
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| 68340 | Not here in the US, we have to much money, in Africa, ect. it is used a lot. I have had a pancake made from milo. Very filling. You only need one. Carleton, Ne. Milo capitol of the US, just down the road from us. |
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| Slicker than a Yes album. | to itch the hell out of us. Tiling in peat ground that sometimes has the consistency of flour (not exaggerating) will drive a guy insane. I do okay until someone knocks some in the trench down the back of my shirt. Good thing it was almost quitting time. |
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| Slicker than a Yes album. | So at the top it says "Grain Sorghum" Is this the same stuff that is used to make molasses? Or is that like corn and sweet corn? |
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 | Hey Billybob.... do you know if they have they started building the new ethanol plant at Carleton yet? I see it showed up on the list at ethanol.com as being in progress already. |
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| NW Washington | Sweet sorghum is the plant the is used to make syrup. A cousin to grain sorghum. They cut it green and squeeze the juice out of the stalks and then boil it down to syrup. I can remember it being planted with silage corn too. http://www.ces.uga.edu/Agriculture/agecon/pubs/sweetsorg.htm |
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| 68340 | Yes, they have. I would guess about Sept. 06 they started the ground work. Moved a lot of dirt using 6 JD with double pans. They have what appears to be 2 concrete silos started. A large flat area with crushed rock over the top. Start up time is anybody's guess. Prob. the 16-24 month time from time of breaking ground. Cargill says they have 50% of the corn supply contract, working on getting 100%. They were going to build a long conveyor to bring the corn over, about 1/2 mile movement. Now they say they will build a rail line. Just buy 10-20 cars, load them and move it over that way. Who knows for sure. Stopped work about 30 days ago because of winter weather.Edited by billybob 1/17/2007 12:39 |
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| Milo offers a lot of advantages. It is much more drought tolerate than corn and may have a higher water to grain conversion level at the lower precip areas. It can hold on and wait for a rain, it holds the soil well and I'm told that it will yield just as much as corn at the ethanol plant (???) It's cheaper to raise vs the corn... not as much $$$ at risk waiting on the rain. The drawbacks are that not as much research has been put into developing the bio-tech traits.. therefore yields aren't quite as good as corn given perfect conditions. It can cross into shattercane in the older days before we had round-up crops to clean that up. It can be slow to drydown and hence harvest can drag from fall into winter... the birds LOVE it and harvest is an ITCH! However, several companies are now looking at increasing some of these traits such as the starch level... and hence ethanol yield. As the need for increased feedgrains continues dryland acres in the Southwest (Ks, Okla, Texas, New Mexico and Colorado... etc) we may need to take a renewed look at this crop. If we are going to continue to expand biofuels we are going to need a source stock that we can grow in areas outside the traditional corn belt. Milo may be the perfect ethanol sourcestock solution for the next level of expansion until cellulosic comes along... whenever that is. |
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 Colby, Kansas | Grain Sorghum (Milo) can be milled into flour for those who suffer from Celiac disease. A mill is running at Ruskin, Nebraska and a pilot plant, Sorghum Technologies Inc. is running at New Cambria, Kansas.Twin Vally Mills at Ruskin, Nebraska We would like to shift more acres to sorghum but insurance situation makes for a difficult transition depending upon your cropping history. Weed control is still an issue but technologies are coming if the industry can hold on for a few more years. Lucas Haag |
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| NC Kansas | I have hauled milo to 2 ethanol plants in Hastings, NE. and 1 in Russell, KS. Matter of fact, 5 years or so ago they were using mostly milo. Rich has an ethanol plant just down the road, but I think they are 100% corn, which is a little odd since here in northcentral/ northwest Kansas, milo has a strong foothold. Gotta love the smell of them ethanol plants! |
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| 68340 | I like milo on my dry land corners. Beans one year, milo the next. I have seen a lot of dry land corn burn up, not the milo. NC+ received a gov. grant to map the DNA of milo. The goal was to identify the DNA parts that were for drought and breed it into corn. Jim Osborn was the leader or worker on that project. I don't know what is going on now that NC+ was sold in 2004. Neighbor had corn, beans, and milo that were hailed bad. Milo grew out and made him money, not the corn or beans. I combined all his crops for him. |
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| Colby, Kansas | Rich, I know thats the way the plant at Trenton, NE works. They don't try to control the proportions. Lucas |
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 Rural Valley pa | is it possible to use it to round bale it and rap it for silage' |
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| Martinsville, Ohio | Quite interesting, never knew that! http://www.siuc.edu/aboutsiuc/saluki.html |
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| Oklahoma Panhandle | I think they chop a lot of grain sorghum for silage in south Texas. National Sorghum Producers website at www.sorghumgrowers.com should have some info. Universities in Texas and Kansas should have a lot of info on their websites. |
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| When we use to dairy we used a lot of silage and for our climate a type of grain sorghum was far better than corn silage. Grain sorghum types vary in height and yield and there are varieties designed for chopping, ie higher and the seed tends to be whiter. A plus for us was that the sorghum handled heat stress a lot better than corn when it was tassling and we also got at least two cuts from the sorghum against corns' one cut. Cost per tonne wise sorghum was better even when irrigated for us and there was not a lot of difference in the cow's output between the two ration mixes. |
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Rich - "...if the stalk bends over and kinks, it's done." That don't stop it from shooting a sprout from the ground here, Rich. A good freeze is the only thing here that will kill milo as long as it has moisture to keep going. |
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Rich, your picture on the left looks like a milo comparison after our bird damage. Those flying rats are the main problem here for growing milo. I've seen flocks of those $$%#&%^% that extend for 10 miles or more. Seed companies used to breed 'bird resistant' seed, but cattle wouldn't eat it either (or as well). End of story...... Edited by Tim KS 1/18/2007 12:20 |
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| Rich - 1/18/2007 11:48 Boy, that's a big no no around here. The nitrates in that second growth are deadly. Of course, I'm thinking the sweet sorghum we raise that we swath and it is nothing to see a 4 foot tall second growth in areas where guys got excited swathing it down and we had a later freeze. Our milo it'self we never see secondary growth after harvest. closest it comes to is if a hail storm presents itself early on but even then, if the stalk bends over and kinks, it's done. Nitrate poisoning can be a big problem , at the moment we have several paddocks of Forage Sorghum suffering severe heat stress that we can not feed. The silage sorghum types that we grew are very low in nitrates as a rule and it was chopped when the grain was soft so the plant quickly reshot if there was enough moisture. The sowing window here for forage starts in September (spring) and if it rains we still have crop growing in March/April before frosts hit. More than once I have harvested a paddock of grain sorghum twice although the second yield is not that great as a rule. Nowdays grain sorghum is often sprayed out before harvest with Roundup to save moisture in the soil and even out grain dry down |
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| Martinsville, Ohio | For those who might be allergic to other grains... |
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Rich, I'm not very picky about milo seed. I plant mostly double-crop inorder to rotate fields & avoid weed & insect problems. Lately I've planted mostly Golden Harvest just because my neighbor is a salesman for them. The coop here sells Asgrow and NC+, both of which I've planted with fair results. I usualy plant a shorter season variety to beat the frost. The best I've raised was 135 bpa dryland, but my average is probably more like 50- 60 bu. which I don't consider bad for DC. |
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| Brazilton KS | Poultry do fine with it, but I think you give up quite a bit more then that if you feed it to ruminants without steam flaking or otherwise heat processing. |
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| Ausjohn, That's what we do as well (South Texas). Some old timers years ago would complete the first harvest and let the stalks stand in the field. If it rained there would be a small second crop to cut. But now, the field is sprayed with RU about a week ahead of harvest. |
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 Little River, TX | We were told LoneStar Beer was made with milo for a grain. Cutting the sweet sorghum in the afternoon might increase the sugar content some. Works with hay, but no one gets paid extra for the slight increase in sugar, and most hay gets cut when the mower gets to the field. Irrigardlessly. |
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