Sorghum-Sudan hybrid broadcast experiment

G

GSP

New member
So, what do you guys thing the chances are that this might work?

I recently gained access to a little pot hole that has potential. With more time I will be able to properly develop it. But here I am at the 11'th hour...

The place is wet. Our dry June/July has been replaced by monsoons. No way to get in there to break ground in time for planting anything this year. However, I happened to have plenty of Round-up and an extra bag of sorghum-sudan grass. So, I figured I would do a little experiment.

A little over a week ago, I took the back pack sprayer and sprayed about an acre of the field, which consisted of weeds. I got a reasonably good kill. Over this past weekend I then broadcasted the sorghum-sudan grass over the area I sprayed. Pretty heavy too, probably about 20 pounds/acre. Today we got a hard driving inch of rain.

I would have much rather broke the ground and covered the seed, but I just couldn't get in there this year. If nothing grows, I'm not really out much. If it does take off, it should make for a real nice winter food source.

So what do you guys think? Anybody ever get this stuff to grow without covering the seed? In the back of my mind, it seems like I have heard of guys broadcasting this stuff over wheat stubble without breaking the ground. Or am I just making that up?
 
I am not sure when your average frost date is there, but I think it will have to hurry to make a food source. As far as getting it to grow with out working it in to the ground, If you didn't want it to grow you would have a thick stand. If it rained and stayed wet awhile it could work.
 
Yah, I know I'm late. That's part of the reason I said to heck with it and just put the seed down. I'm reading that I need 60 days before the first frost for it to reach maturity. It's going to be close.

The seed was of no cost to me, so I figured what the heck. Even if it doesn't reach maturity, it may provide some cover.
 
I broadcast and run a shallow spring-tooth harrow over mine, and have had good results. Some seed is left on top and it will germinate unless it gets eaten first. I do see two potential issues with your plan though....

The first issue is that sorghum is a more southern crop - AKA needs a long time to form a mature seed head. WGF sorghum is probably the best for us simply because it's one of the shorter maturing options, but even then it's something like 50-60 days until the milky stage, which is at least another 30 days from maturing into a more substantial seed.

Personally I had a patch I planted late due to the wet spring and then never grew into much other than a sea of crabgrass with some sad looking sorghum. It was so bad I decided to mow and till it under before the crabgrass went to seed, but consider it so late that I'm not going to do anything with it for pheasants (might throw something on it for deer - I'm unsure).

In the event that you do get good germination, and lack of a remaining growing season aside, it's better to underseed sorghum than to overseed. Overseeding results in dwarfed plants and poor seed head formation. :( Seeding less and letting the various forbs ("weeds" is a negative term) come back is IMO more useful.

For something that would have been a great throw and grow with the remaining time this season would have been buckwheat (if you can find it - I had a hard time this year). It'll grow on concrete if it gets wet and produces seed in about 60 days or so. It won't hold up to the weather well once it gets really cold, but if there's other stalky plants (sorghum/corn/various forbs) they'll help keep it up or at least reduce it filling up with snow.

Good luck and be sure to let us know how it turns out!
 
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