WAVERLY, Va. — Farmers are increasing their sorghum acreage this year to control weeds and augment their bottom line.
According to Tim Copeland, a Suffolk County farmer and Virginia Farm Bureau agribusiness and farm insurance specialist, sorghum helps control weeds that maize crop herbicides offer in a continual glyphosate no-till program.
“I know of at least four other farmers in my area that feel the same way and, are planting this year for the first time,” Copeland wrote in an e-mail to The Delmarva Farmer.
Copeland said some Virginia farmers have weeds that are getting resistant to glyphosate in no-till cotton and soybean crops.
“By planting grain sorghum —which should perform better in drier years and droughty soil types, instead of corn — I am able to get the benefit of a totally different herbicide package,” he said. “My goal is to attack no-till weed issues with a good rotational crop that has a better performance potential in a dry year than corn.”
Mike Spain, a Sussex County farmer, who works 1,000 acres and maintains a beef cattle herd, said he’s growing twice as much sorghum as last year.