China wants more sorghum. Would you shift from corn to sorghum?

[luisvieira]

Hello boys,

This week, I've followed a lot of information about sorghum to write about the growing Chinese demand for it. The USDA says the Chinese imported  a volume of 84,000 tons of sorghum in the 2011/2012 season. This demand jumped to stunning 3.4 million in 2013/2014 and it is expected to grow even more in 2014/2015.

I talked to some analysts and they told me that China currently prefers to buy sorghum instead of corn to feed its cattle, hog or whatever. Tim Murray, an Australian analyst at PentAgNidera, said he would bet that American would grow sorghum acres this year and another issue behind the Chinese demand is because it is used for some alcoholic beverages in the Asian country. 

So I would like to hear from you guys. Would you shift corn acres to sorghum? If you would, why? If not, what are the difficulties?

Thank you.

Luís 

[sw363535]

As and if the drought continues to move out of the high plains of the central US,  there will be a big increase of milo acres in the US.

The drought has limited our bushels for 4 years now and the water reserves in the area are depleting.   Grain sorghum ( milo) will be the crop of choice in large areas.

[childofthecorn]

I bought a new planter 3 years ago and didn't order sorghum plates for it and don't ever want to order them.  Milo just dosen't work here in south central Nebraska.  Ten years ago we had landlords that insisted on milo so we planted it , it was a dry, dry year.  The milo made 8 bu/acre and dryland corn we had made 6.  But the corn at least had chemical traits to kill weeds.  Sorghum just dosen't pay around here, other than seed its imputs are the same.  Around here you always needed a killing freeze to dry down the stuff and when that did happen a minimum of 10% would fall on the ground.  The only place you see milo around here is boardering seed corn fields.  And that is just to put some extra humas in the ground after to many years of beans.

[Shaggy98]

Ah, is sorghum finally learking out from under the wing of mother ship corn? I've been a Milo producer my whole life and it has become my crop of choice even over HRW wheat. It does make a nice rotation of wheat-Milo-fallow. Last year I cut some 135 bushel milo while I sold corn for green chop. It performs very well in my location, Central Kansas.

IMO, if sorghum ever wants to get the notoriety it deserves, it needs to be traded on the floor as all other commodities are. Otherwise the price will always be set from the price of corn. Perhaps an expanding export market is exactly what the Dr. ordered for the "step child" crop. Luis, thanks for starting this thread and please keep us updated on any additional stories or information.

[clayton58]

If my memory is correct the KCBT ( remember when it was independant?) tried a milo contract but it never gained enough volume to takeoff. This was a number of years ago. Maybe ten or twelve. I'm not sure

[sw363535]

Childoftgwcorn. Milo belt is south Texas to neb boarder. If corn comes close-- Milo was planted too thick. Your season is too short

[childofthecorn]

We raise alot of 110-117 day corn around here.  I think we have as good a chance as any to raise good milo, it just dosen't compete well with corn form what I can see.  The year in question I was refering to was exceptionally dry after many other dry years and nothing yielded well.  But at least with the corn you have a herbicide package.

 Just wondering, how thick do you plant your milo?  I think we always did 3lb/acre or something like that.

[luisvieira]

These obscene corn prices are not a push for other crops?