Sorghum bicolor, sweet sorghum seeds

Sorghum bicolor seeds

Sugar sorghum, also called Sorghum bicolor, was originated in Ethiopia and was brought to America by the slaves at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Subsequent it was cultivated in Asia and Europe. Today it is ranking fifth in global cereal production. Its closed relatives are maize plants (Zea mays).

It belongs to the family of Poaceae within the genus of Sorghum; it contents very much sugar so the sweet taste of its marrow is typical for it.

It is an annual or short-term perennial plant with culms up to five meters in size and a habitus like maize plants. It has little spikelets with four to six millimeters in size ordered in panicles with a size between eight and forty centimeters. Seeds are nodular and are strong peeled.

Because of the warm native country they do not tolerate frost or cold temperatures. Even cold soils should be avoided. Sandy and loamy soils with a good ability to absorb thermal might be ideal. They also avoid dammed-up water. Temperatures should be around 16 degree in average per day, the optimum for growing is about thirty degree. Sugar sorghum is very tolerant to drought, where it just stops growing and continues it after receiving water again.

This crop is very useful, for example there can be made syrup and molasses out of it and even as forage crop it is suitable. In developing countries the roofs of the houses are made of it and they also use it as fuel. In Europe it is cultivated for getting energy out of it or used as silage fodder within establishments for biologic gas or for the production of biologic ethanol.