Mixing Corn and Sorghum

F

Freeborn

Member
I had the good fortune to get invited to a game farm this Friday and got the opportunity to chat with the owner about their food-plots. He mixes corn and sorghum and broadcasts it as he believes it makes for a much thicker food plot.

Today, Saturday, I hunted my place and walked my row planted corn and have to agree it is not nearly as thick as the broadcast corn and sorghum mix.

I am thinking about broadcasting sorghum next year and dragging to cover and cultipacking. I would then follow-up with my row planted corn. I can use dual II magnum as a pre-emergent and 2-4-d to control broadleaf.

Has anybody tried mixing corn and Sorghum and how did you control weeds? How did the pheasants use the plot and did they eat any of the sorghum seed heads? I planted Sorghum one time but had no success with pheasants eating it but it might be different if I mixed it with corn. They love corn in my area and that seems to be the primary attractant from what I have experienced.

When planting a mix like this what kind of problems may I have? Will I have problems with the corn shading out the sorghum or will it work out? What kind of seed rate should I go with? Reduce my corn by X and add X pounds of Sorghum?

Thanks!
 
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Good Luck

Not sure how I would go about this. I thought most corn is round up ready and sorghum usually can't handle round up but is normally sprayed with 2, 4D. Sorghum planted alone usually pushes out weeds.

I have always wanted to use a corn planter and plant two rows of corn with 4 rows of sorghum. But most people say you need 16 rows of corn to get them to pollinate effectively.

Do you plant to plant using a drill or corn planter or broadcast?

SDviking
 
I plant corn and sorghum together in a corn planter. Took some time to find the correct sorghum plates but now I can set my planter at about 29000 for corn population and i the sorghum plates it's right at 8.5 lbs an acre(which is a little less than I normally plant if straight sorghum. I plant 3 different vatieties of sorghum and yes I plant the 12' tall stuff in the mix along with some 5-6' stuff that's very leafy and some short milo. When the tall stuff falls over great cover underneath since everything is dried down another benefit I find to this is when it falls over its at chest or waist high instead of tangling up around my feet. As far as spraying weeds I use dual 2 magnum pre and just hit it once with 2-4d like you mentioned before the corn is 10" tall. Birds use it like crazy!!!!
 
ford said:
I plant corn and sorghum together in a corn planter. Took some time to find the correct sorghum plates but now I can set my planter at about 29000 for corn population and i the sorghum plates it's right at 8.5 lbs an acre(which is a little less than I normally plant if straight sorghum. I plant 3 different vatieties of sorghum and yes I plant the 12' tall stuff in the mix along with some 5-6' stuff that's very leafy and some short milo. When the tall stuff falls over great cover underneath since everything is dried down another benefit I find to this is when it falls over its at chest or waist high instead of tangling up around my feet. As far as spraying weeds I use dual 2 magnum pre and just hit it once with 2-4d like you mentioned before the corn is 10" tall. Birds use it like crazy!!!!
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I like it. I'm going to give this a try. Do you mind posting the types of sorghum you use and where do you get them? You must be using a concept treated sorghum? One thing I need to make certain is that I have enough growing days to get the forage sorghum to mature. How many pounds of actual nitrogen are you using to get good growth?

Thanks Much!
 
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SDViking heres a two rows milo and 2 sunflowers messing around with my JD 7000 4 row W on my acreage.

2011-08-24_19_39_41.jpg


Ford.. Do you have any pictures of the corn/sorghum plots?
 
reddog said:
SDViking heres a two rows milo and 2 sunflowers messing around with my JD 7000 4 row W on my acreage.

2011-08-24_19_39_41.jpg


Ford.. Do you have any pictures of the corn/sorghum plots?
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That is a nice mix. Should have the seed in the fall and better insect benefits in the summer. Good stuff!
 
What do you do for Weed control if you don't use Duall II

For you guys who plant sorghum are any of you not using Duall II herbicide. I ask because if you do you need to have the Concep treated seed which is more difficult to come by. If I did not have to use a Concep treated seed there are allot more choices for seed suppliers.

Thanks
 
Reddog

Wow that really looks nice! Well done. I have a JD 6 row, 30 inch, but have not used it for food plots. I normally use an old JD drill with 7 inch rows and block off 2 between rows so I have 21 inch rows which works great for sorghum.

Reddog do you have late season pictures of your sorghum sunflower plot?

Last year was the first year we planted sorghum that was treated. I am not sure of the brand, bought the stuff on craigslist for 40 a bag 40 pound bag. The stuff produced great!! With no fertilizer but timely rains.

After seeing Reddogs photos I may have to try 3 sunflower or corn then 3 rows of sorghum.

Viking
 
that plot looks sweet reddog... the most pheasants i seen in 1 spot this year was on public land in SD tree row then grain sorghom rows next to corn rows then strip of side oats gama in beteeen more cane sorghom strips next to more corn then cane sorghom then corn finely more side oats gama was outstanding seen hundreds of birds in there... sunflower fields surrounded this area... as did pay to play habitat set up in same sorghom/corn/side oats gama + tree rows...

seen a smaller version of this produced birds each walk i took there lol about 80 miles apart add corn to sorghom u will be happy... some apple trees were in 1 plot tree line birds in them more then once
 
sdviking said:
Wow that really looks nice! Well done. I have a JD 6 row, 30 inch, but have not used it for food plots. I normally use an old JD drill with 7 inch rows and block off 2 between rows so I have 21 inch rows which works great for sorghum.

Reddog do you have late season pictures of your sorghum sunflower plot?

Last year was the first year we planted sorghum that was treated. I am not sure of the brand, bought the stuff on craigslist for 40 a bag 40 pound bag. The stuff produced great!! With no fertilizer but timely rains.

After seeing Reddogs photos I may have to try 3 sunflower or corn then 3 rows of sorghum.

Viking
Click to expand...

I did have some on my phone but it crashed before I could get them uploaded.

I did a milo/ soybeans/ corn/corn plot one year with the planter also.
 
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