Anyone grow Milo (Commercial Sorghum) ???

This summer, a strange crop started growing in our back garden underneath a bird feeder. Grew like crazy all summer, dry area, dry as a bone and no watering and hardly any rain in that corner. Produced big seed heads with tiny 1mm grain seeds. Finally found out what it was ..... Milo or Sorghum .... interesting crop, sounds like it grows pretty much anywhere and thrives in dry conditions and requires almost no fertilizer. Any of this stuff grown in your area or maybe you grow some yourself? The link below says lots grown in the US and other places in the world, not sure about Canada.
Milo Commercial Sorghum

There's quite a bit of it grown in Arkansas. Nearly all of it is grown for animal feed and the food value is comparable to corn. When I was in HS, Dad usually had 100 acres or so. By accident I found out that it can be popped like popcorn. I blew a hydraulic hose on the combine and some of the oil got into the grain tank. The oil was hot enough to pop some of the milo. I've tried popping some at home and it works. It has a little different taste but it's not bad.

We used to raise it here in New Mexico, we are close to Texas and Oklahoma, it's about the only crop we can grow successfully dry land, as we only get 10 to 18 inches a rain a year. They still raise it here to some degree, but it is usually under irrigation now. Not many dry land farmers in our area any more. It still takes fertilizer to raise a decent crop tho. About half the inputs of corn if I remember right, that will get you in the 5 to 6 thousand pound range under irrigation. You are limited on yield and that is why most guys take a chance and plant corn, and hope to get some timely rain with the irrigation. Dry land yield we could usually count on about a ton to the acre, when the rain is timely we could hit 4000 lbs to the acre. Of course that didn't happen very often.

In central NJ many years ago my dad raised it for green chop and some went in the silo. If you got enough rain it grew like crazy. The girls loved it cause it has a sweet taste to it if you chew on a little. Gets pretty tall to and if you harvest it at 5he right time it is all nice and juicy. The wagon would be dripping like a waterfall.

We planted a few acres of sorghum this year to try and divert the deer away from our corn and soybeans. It is really good looking, nice big seed heads on it. But the only thing the deer do with it is walk through it on the way to the corn and soybeans. It was an experiment. It didn't work out how I had hoped, it was sort of a waste of money I guess. Won't try that again. Hopefully the birds will eat the seed heads at least, so something gets some use out of it.

Ross

Some potato growers in PEI Canada are growing Sudan Sorgum grass,not sure if it's the same or not but it looks like short corn minus the cob. They are growing it here to mulch down.

A lot more was grown in Nebraska in the past than there is now. In fact, when I was farming in the 1980's, I rotated soybeans and milo like farmers rotate soybeans and corn now. Corn took over from milo when prices went up.

I always enjoyed growing milo, although it was itchy stuff to combine. And, unlike corn, if you got a dry spell, milo would go semi dormant and then wake up again when it rained. One summer my father had a field of milo west of my house that was about half headed out but hadn't done much for a couple of weeks because of dry weather. We had a two inch rain one night, and from the time I left for work the next morning until I got home in the evening, that field almost completely finished heading out.

Farmers hereabouts still grow some in corners of fields that are center-pivot irrigated. It's shorter and doesn't cause blind intersections like corn does. It's used mostly for cattle feed, although some years ago someone here in Nebraska tried to make breakfast cereal out of it. Didn't catch on.

A guy grows it here in western Washinton- make silage out of it when its still green, we generally don't get enough heat for it to head out and get dry enough to combine (although it sure would have this year). Seemed to grow really well.

Milo production picked up in the US the past few years, as there was a good market exporting to China for a bit. Milo was not subject to some of the same trade restrictions as corn, and could be sold as non-GMO. Not sure of the status now in 2017, but was in vogue in about 2015. Dairymen in CA were also planting milo in about 2015, as they could get silage on a lot less water during the drought.

My dad and uncle grew milo here in SE WI in the mid 60's after several very dry summers. It was kind of a bust, as the summer they grew it we actually got a fair amount of rain, and there were issues with the grain sprouting in the head. Probably why it is a great plains crop!

This is a picture of my dad's crop of milo.
Dry land farming.

I think some of you are confusing forage sorghum and sorghum-sedan grass with grain sorghum.

Pretty common in South Dakota here and neighboring plains states. Especially west river. I see the crops this year are getting cut now and look pretty decent... Even when corn fields close by look terrible. Heading west again tomorrow and Wednesday and will see the progress. Don't see much of it harvested but did haul corn for a worker whose employer harvested many thousands of acres of it every year. Hauled milo once years ago on accident when I got a call from the elevator I loaded at and said they loaded me with the wrong product. 100 miles later and a return trip had to unload the milo and then reload wheat like I had intended. It's interesting how these memories come back.

we raised milo for hog feed in the 70s , i liked mixin onion wheat /milo/corn equal parts .., still remember what the pens smelled like ,LOL .. but man , Oh Man , those pigs turned into fat hoggs quik,.. the milo protein value allowed about a 30% reduction in bean meal ,. .,.darn good feed, and easy to grow ,even in wet sloughs,,And if dry yr... those plump heads of grain stick up like a single middle finger to dry weather,milo dont care it will produce a good crop regardless of the weather .. once harvested we ran the fat cows on the fields and broadcast winter wheat for the cows to trample in for cover crop ,,..sure worked good ,trouble was the milo had no commercial market, only local feeders,,and it was problematic to dry if a fella only used air and it rained for 2 weeks like we did .. we had about 1000 get hot when i was 17 ,had to get it out and load wagons ,i went in the bin to shovel in the bottom cone ,. i had a mask on ,but that yellow mold,. got in my lungs bad ,went skating that nite with ALL the wife to be's sibs and i was winded ,.. next day i went to the hospital with a 103 fever ,the kept me for 10 days, and to be honest,. that was the beginning of my emphesema, but it is great feed for both cattle and hogs .

You can also pop it like popcorn. Eat with a tablespoon as it is to small to use fingers. File under: things my Dad taught me.

Had never seen it before but there are 3 or 4 good sized fields of it around here this year.

Milo. I buy it by the 50# bag for $10-11 rather than the high priced bird seed, keeping the feeder going year-round. Cardinals especially, love it, as do squirrels and rabbits. Used to be Cardinals came and went with the weather. Now we have around 5 families that decided to just stay here and avoid the long trip up North and back. Watching them play their little games is amusement in itself.....the Cocks had rather fight than eat.

It is grown down here as a cash crop. Plant it in lieu of Corn.....used to be the 3rd crop in rotation with wheat and cotton but the corn boom has changed things. It has a thick short stem similar in diameter to corn and heads out in a big seed head. You combine it like wheat. The dust will eat you up when harvesting if on an open station tractor. Survives the (usually dry) summers here and likes the alkali soil.

In dry years, when hay is short, you feed what's left over from combining (stems and leaves in round bales) to your cows along with the bulk molasses feeder. Molasses gets their belly hot and the Milo leftovers satisfy the bulk for the ruminants. Has saved me numerous times.

Some guys up on this end of the state are growing it instead of soybeans because the deer don't mess with it. I believe both Perdue and FM Brown's buy it and are within reasonable trucking distance.

Have never seen it in any way here in the eastern corn belt.