It’s not your grandfather’s sorghum

Not your Grandfather's Sorghum

There’s a lot of history rooted in Kent Martin’s Oklahoma farm. He is farming land his grandparents and parents once farmed.

“Our farm is located south of Alva, Oklahoma,” he said. “We start right near the Hopeton area and farm quite a bit around Dacoma and Carmen, and then we skip an area and have the land where my dad grew up west of Fairview, Oklahoma.”

Geographically the farm is split into two areas, each having a specific set of goals for Martin. One, on the northern edge of what he farms has a priority of grain production. The second, mostly the land Martin’s parents farmed, is dual-purpose.

“My dad was always a cattleman and operated for cattle, so we kind of stuck with that,” Martin said. “Which, the type of land lends itself to that kind of operation.”

Martin has been farming on his own since the loss of his father in a 2011 tornado. Previously he worked for Kansas State University Southwest Research and Extension center in Garden City, Kansas. His work as a crops and soil specialist has a lot of influence on his agronomic decisions.

Mostly a no-till operation, Martin said on the grain producing part of the farm, he does a wheat, grain sorghum and canola rotation.

“When we go from grain sorghum to wheat that’s typically a double crop,” Martin said. “So we also have a position for what I like to call an alternative or maybe an opportunity crop prior to the grain sorghum.”

The opportunity crop is often a forage sorghum, millet or a cowpea—benefitting the cattle and providing hay or feed to get through the winter.

“When we come out of the grain sorghum, if we can get wheat planted early enough, we then try to use the opportunity of grazing those sorghum stalks,” he said. “So there will be small wheat there that they may or may not graze. But then primarily we’ll utilize those stalks to help overwinter some of the cattle.”

On the livestock side of the farm, the land mostly is planted in wheat or rye, often with graze out opportunities. As needed, grain sorghum is added to help clean up the fields and keep them free of weeds.

“We also produce pedigreed rye seed and so the grain sorghum is used to go into land just prior to our pedigreed rye seed to qualify it for pedigreed production,” Martin said. “And so then of course when we harvest it typically—we may or may not plant another crop right in behind it if it’s going to a pedigreed crop, we leave it sit out.”

Later the cows go out on the stalks or they are baled if there’s plenty of hay already in storage.

Sorghum production

Typically Martin will plant grain sorghum as early as he can—historically around April 20. In 2014, he moved it up about a week.

“So as soon as we can, assuming field conditions are appropriate, we get out there and we get our crop in hopefully before may unless something really drastic holds us up,” he said. “Our goal is to be finished planting the crop before May.”

Having the sorghum in the ground early lets harvest come in August or September. If he decides to hay the crop, it allows a little breathing room.

“So if we hay that crop then, that gives us enough time to swath it, bale it and it’s a mad rush, but we try to get all that hauled at least to the edge of the field or hauled out of the field so that we can get back in and plant wheat,” Martin said.

As for the concern about nitrates and prussic acid accumulation in the stalks and subsequent bales, Martin isn’t concerned.

“We have not had big issues with that,” he said. “Most typically their greatest concentration of nitrate is going to be at the base of the plant. We will typically cut the hay a little high if we cut it.”

Cutting the stalks that way does two things for Martin. It leaves more residue in the field, hopefully eliminating the highest concentration of the nitrate at the base of the stems.

“I think if we had a year where the nitrate concentration is just out the roof, that wouldn’t help us that much, but we haven’t ran into that,” Martin said.

Dryland challenges

All of Martin’s fields are dryland, with soils ranging from a very tight clay to very loose sand.

“So in the realms of soil types we have we have some that has pretty decent water holding capacity and some that is very, very poor,” Martin said. “That is one of the things that I really like about grain sorghum.”

From his limited water situation, Martin appreciates sorghum’s ability to produce in a low moisture environment.

“For me, it’s a risk minimizing crop that you can almost always hang your hat on making something off the crop because it’s going to use what water’s there to produce something,” he said. “Now, I compare the crops that I grow and I think about them logically, and some of the crops that we grow in Oklahoma and Kansas are not that way.”

If the rain doesn’t come, other crops are done. They are just not going to work.

“Grain sorghum has this unique ability flex its physiology based on what is available for it, and for moisture that means if it has the moisture it will grow and produce, if it doesn’t have the moisture it may just put life on hold for a minute,” Martin said. “Wait for moisture to come and then when the moisture does come production begins again. That gives it that ability to produce yield and do a good job of it.”

Last year proved interesting for Martin. He planted his sorghum before two 70 percent chances of rain that he never got. The crop didn’t come up for about 35 to 40 days because it was so dry.

“You know, it looked like all was lost. I had a lot of people wondering why I was doing what I was doing,” he said “And the rain came. The seeds germinated, came up and had the best crop I’ve ever had. Not to say that’s always going to happen, but it is impressive to see.”

The sorghum in the moist parts of the fields or the low-lying areas with a lot of residue came up shortly after planting.

“They put life on hold, waited for the moisture and at harvest time you couldn’t tell the difference in what came up early and what came up late,” he said. “It was all very similar in production. So it did a good job of that.”

Martin credits research funded by the United Sorghum Checkoff Program, which has helped make available hybrids that are water efficient.

“The Checkoff’s been a big part of promoting the efficient use of water and of course grain sorghum fits that very, very well,” he said. “A lot of people (use) the catchphrase that it’s a ‘water-sipping’ crop. Just meaning it can go along using very small amounts of water to survive until it has the opportunity to increase production.”

The increase in efficiency helps improve parts of a farmer’s production system, Martin said.

“Now if I was an irrigator, that would be very important to me because there may be times where I need to have a mix of very water efficient crops so that I can save water to produce something that may not be as water efficient or so that I can have a consistent yield producing crop on a low gallon well or something like that,” Martin said.

Marketing his crop

Martin typically sits down before each growing season and makes a plan. He looks at the crops he’s growing and the land he will grow them on.

“I try to set down with a budget to calculate out what we need for the grain sorghum and how we’re going to set the amount of income per acre based on our yield goals and some of those things,” he said. “That obviously flexes throughout the year. We establish what we feel we need as a price based on that.”

Once he has a feel for how the year is going, that tends to dictate where the crop will be marketed and how they will proceed to try to find markets.

“There may be a great market, but it may cost more to get it there than what we make for that,” Martin said. “That may restrict us a little bit.”

But Martin is excited for a new rail loop in his area.

“We have historically marketed through our local elevator,” he said. “We have some exciting things I think coming around the corner. In our area there’s going to be a rail loop put in near Medford, Oklahoma.”

The new loop will hopefully open local markets up to be shipped elsewhere.

“Historically we’ve been somewhat restricted in some of our marketing opportunities,” Martin said. “Even if someone like me stays with working through a local coop, if that local coop has that ability to take advantage of the international market if they can have a higher basis in terms of a positive basis, like we currently have, then they can give me more for it which benefits me.”

It’s kind of the roundabout way to get the marketing done, but it’s still a good thing for the area Martin hopes, especially if China keeps buying sorghum like it has.

“The China market has been so huge in the last couple years. For instance in this last crop, 2013-14 marketing year they bought 60 percent of the U.S. sorghum crop,” Martin said. “Just outrageous amounts of sorghum, and so what our historical marketing opportunities have been, we’re now moving into a greater amount of international marketing opportunities.”

Martin gives credit to the Checkoff for building those relationships with China and other foreign buyers.

“We’ve hosted them in the U.S. We’ve developed strong relationships with them that has facilitated this market opportunity,” Martin said. “Otherwise you can bet for sure we wouldn’t be at the point that we are in terms of the marketing opportunity, especially compared to corn.”

He finds it interesting that sorghum is qualified as an advanced biofuel, giving it an advantage for government programs.

“We have so much an international market place right now that we’ve actually had to reduce some of the intake of grain sorghum into some of the ethanol plants, because there’s such a demand for it worldwide that we can’t supply that much,” Martin said. “So that’s creating a very nice opportunity for the farmer to say, hey we know this stuff is needed, lets grow it and take advantage of this market.”

The international market for sorghum has been somewhat restricted Martin said, but there are opportunities now that farmers never had before.

“It’s really interesting, the price for grain sorghum has always been based on corn, and so we always have this basis from the corn price,” Martin said.

In early February, Martin said his local elevator was giving 60 cents over the price of corn for grain sorghum, making each bushel of worth more than corn. Some areas are well above a dollar making it very attractive to grow sorghum.

“If we painted a scenario and we said I have a low water holding capacity soil or I have a low gallonage well with limited irrigation, do I grow corn, do I grow grain sorghum? What’s my option?” Martin said. “Well I can choose a water efficient crop that’s going to be more safe in terms of risk and I can get, right now in my area 60 cents more per bushel for it.”

With the marketing dynamics, grain sorghum has its advantages, Martin said. It costs less to put in and it’s making as much for the farmer in the end.

“So for me in my operation it has been a good moneymaker,” Martin said. “And I guess I keep saying it, I can’t say it enough it’s something I can count on. It’s consistent and it minimizes my risk.”

Education

Educational opportunities within the sorghum industry have helped Martin become a better producer. County-based sorghum meetings or sorghum specific events, help producers make informed decisions and prove invaluable.

“I’ve been very impressed with the amount of interest in the Sorghum U programs,” he said. “I’m actually in a program called Leadership Sorghum.”

Sorghum producers from across the country are part of Leadership Sorghum—a program administered by the Checkoff, and Martin is actually the only one from Oklahoma.

“We basically follow through the important aspects of sorghum production throughout about a year and a half process and we learn about how, for instance, how do we got through seed production,” Martin said.

The program provides a number of experiences he’s found helpful.

“They’re trying to grow the next group of leaders for the sorghum industry,” he said. “It’s really neat, because for me, that benefits me personally and my farm. I just don’t learn about sorghum, I learn a lot of things that I can apply to the farm.”

Bucking the trend

Where Martin is located on the eastern edge of northwest Oklahoma, farmers traditionally grow wheat because they graze cattle. It’s hard to change minds, Martin said.

“Something else that grain sorghum has done for me—especially in what everyone else considers kind of a prime wheat growing area—is when I don’t have a wheat crop in just prior to grain sorghum, that gives me a very good opportunity to control unwanted weeds that have been a historical problem in my wheat crop,” Martin said.

It even benefits his canola fields later in the rotation.

“The rotational benefits are very, very important to me,” Martin said. “It also produces a lot of biomass, in terms of prevention of erosion and those kinds of things. That’s very important which I like to have that in the rotation.”

Also, having a hybrid that will work in his area is key in his rotations. He again credits the Checkoff for financial and logistical support for companies and researchers to develop new and improved hybrids.

“I hear a lot of people say, yeah, my grandpa grew grain sorghum and they talk about it being itchy. They talk about the poor yields and those kinds of things,” Martin said. “Through the things that the Checkoff has done we have made incredible improvements in the grain sorghum and the forage sorghum crop both over the years.”

It’s no longer the sorghum of the past that “our grandparents or great grandparents grew,” Martin said. “It’s something that goes far above and beyond what they had to work with.”

Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or [email protected]

Source: It’s not your grandfather’s sorghum – High Plains Journal: Journal Exclusive