Get Your Sorghum Planted NOW!

Reader Contribution by Sherry Leverich Tucker
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I don’t mean to scare you, but if you want to have a crop of sorghum it needs to be planted NOW!! I have been behind this year, but hope to have sorghum to squeeze and cook come this fall.

Anytime through the month of June, at least in my location in the Ozarks of Missouri, sorghum can be planted. I would even say that if willing to take the risk of an early frost ruining the crop (two weeks into October), it can be planted into the first couple of weeks of July.

The sorghum cane seems to thrive in hot dry weather as long as it gets a good start. We have been facing an early summer drought here and are in painful need of rain. A mid June planting of cane is preferred, which I did, but the rows were very skippy so I disced it up and just replanted it two days ago. I am hoping to get a good stand that will be adequate for a good amount of juice to cook off in the fall.

The cane can be grown, spaced and fertilized similar to corn. I have found that five or six, 125 foot rows can produce up to 50 gallons of juice that will cook down into approximately 5 gallons of syrup. Thinning the canes six inches apart will help them to grow larger in diameter and height making for sturdy canes that are able to withstand strong wind. I would also discourage heavy watering for the same reason; shallow roots make these tall canes easier to blow over as well. One year I didn’t thin out the crop like I should have and some heavy winds blew the canes in every direction. It was a huge mess and we were unable to do anything but pile and burn them that winter. It was both an unnavigable disaster and an entire crop loss. Thinning will also enable canes to grow to their potential, creating a better harvest of full sized canes, rather than harvesting more lean, leggy canes.

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