New Generation Sorghum
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nkotb
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As a agronomy salesman and a cattle breeder, I have quite a bit of experience with what they are calling "New Generation Sorghums." I personally would not feed anything that is not a BMR-6, and would prefer to be the brachytic dwarf hybrids. As far as yield and cost go, in our area of NW Kansas, a large number of producers have switched corn silage acres over to sorghum silage acres. The cost is less, Most years the tonnage is better, and a lot of times the feed value is very similar. We had some sorghum silage last year that tested the same as their corn silage, even though the sorghum silage had no grain in it. Some of the producers around here prefer the silage to have grain, but you aren't gaining much not having it in a cow/calf ration. We have had dryland corn silages do 18-25 tons in years that were not very good at all when the corn silage was doing 3-6 tons/acre. This year with the drought, the sorghum silage did exactly as they said, it grew to about 1.5-2 feet tall and stalled out due to lack of moisture, we had one rain event of 4 inches around the last part of July, and the silage shot up, whereas it was too late for the corn to go anywhere. There are a couple watchouts with BMR silage sorghums.
1. Because of the reduced lignin content, stalk strength can be an issue. The correct fertility levels can greatly reduce the issue, but timely cutting is even more important than in conventional sorghums or corn.
2. There are multiple BMR events in both sorghum/sudan and forage sorghums. You want the BMR-6 event. It is a more pure BMR, meaning less lignin than the BMR-18, and the BMR trait is expressed through the whole plant, not just the more mature parts. The BMR-6, being more pure, also stands better than the BMR-18, even though it has less lignin, due to the way the BMR gene is expressed.
There is a large following of BMR users in our sorghum/sudan we use for feed in this part of the world as well. The Brachytic dwarf seems to be catching on more in this area than the forage sorghums used for silage. The BMR makes a shorter plant, with more, larger leaves. The effect is an equivalent amount of tons/acre, with more leaves and less stalk. This is very important in our region as most bales are either put in a bale ring or rolled out for the cows, and a lot of times the cows will eat off the leaves and leave the stalk.
1. Because of the reduced lignin content, stalk strength can be an issue. The correct fertility levels can greatly reduce the issue, but timely cutting is even more important than in conventional sorghums or corn.
2. There are multiple BMR events in both sorghum/sudan and forage sorghums. You want the BMR-6 event. It is a more pure BMR, meaning less lignin than the BMR-18, and the BMR trait is expressed through the whole plant, not just the more mature parts. The BMR-6, being more pure, also stands better than the BMR-18, even though it has less lignin, due to the way the BMR gene is expressed.
There is a large following of BMR users in our sorghum/sudan we use for feed in this part of the world as well. The Brachytic dwarf seems to be catching on more in this area than the forage sorghums used for silage. The BMR makes a shorter plant, with more, larger leaves. The effect is an equivalent amount of tons/acre, with more leaves and less stalk. This is very important in our region as most bales are either put in a bale ring or rolled out for the cows, and a lot of times the cows will eat off the leaves and leave the stalk.
