Talk:Sorghum

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Conflict: The article states: "A United States patent officer introduced sweet sorghum to America in 1853." and just a few sentences later states: "African slaves introduced sorghum into the U.S. in the early 17th century."

Which is correct? at the verry least this is confusing.

Conflict: Barley is the fifth largest cultivated cereal crop in the world (530,000 km² or 132 million acres). Sorghum is the fifth major cereal crop grown in the world (47 million hectares harvested in 1996). Where does this data come from?

Good question. Such statistics are not easy to track down and it would be much easier if the original contributors cited sources. Liblamb 14:09, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I removed, "47 million hectares harvested in 1996" because it was old data and out of place. If somebody can find a good place for it, great. I added citations for a few things. World crop stats (outside of rice, wheat, and corn) are hard to find on the Internet it seems but US stats for Sorghum are not hard to find. NASS stats Liblamb 15:35, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

This page at the FAO website looks promising for this and other articles. Their 2004 worldwide figures are:

	area harvested (ha)	amount harvested (Mt)
Sorghum	43,727,353	58,884,425
Barley	57,313,167	153,624,393

Of course, these presumably include crops grown for beer and fodder, which may or may not be what is intended or understood when we say "largest" or "most important" cereal crop. Pekinensis 18:37, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

==relevance As a plant geneticist, let me tell you that I find the section on South African scientists creating a system to culture sorghum cells in suspension highly irrelevant to proteomics or even general botany. I have never worked with sorghum, so the possibility exists that this is truely special for this plant, but somatic cell liquid culture is not something novel, new, especially useful for proteomics or otherwise even noteworthy. I suggest deletion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.219.235.253 (talk) 05:27, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Contents 1 Split 2 large edit cleanup 3 Plant Population 4 Water Requirement 5 Production 6 Consolidation of "origins" 7 Sorghum names 8 Cultural Signicance 9 aluminum-tolerance gene in sorghum

[edit] Split

I've split this article. The majority of the text has now been moved to "commercial sorghum". The reason for this is quite simple: the article is not accurate when referring to the genus Sorghum. It concentrates exclusively on the few commercially cultivated species and hybrids while ignoring the vast majority of species within the genus. As such the comments made become inaccurate. eg most Sorghum species don't have growth habit similar to maize, many, probably most, are less than 30cm tall, Sorghum species are native to warm temperate and tropical areas worldwide, most sorghum species aren't high nitrogen fodder and so on and so forth. By ignoring the vast majority of Sorgum species the article make snuemrous statemnst that are factually incorrect.

However it is an extremely good article on commercial sorghum, which is why I've moved most of it there. Attempting to re-write the article to make all the statements true of the genus SOrghum generally woudl be a massive undertaking. Almost none of the statments are true of the genus as a whole. Even if such a re-rwite was done we would end up with an unbalanced and bastardised article. There would be masses of information on the tiny minority of commercially cultivated sorghums with no acknowledgement given to the vast majority of species, many of which are economicallly and environmentally important in their own right.Ethel Aardvark

[edit] large edit cleanup

There was a large edit that needs a lot of cleanup. It is oriented toward the US too much. I'll try to do some cleanup but it probably will need more. Liblamb 17:43, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Plant Population

In Austrailia we plant as low as 50,000 plants/seeds per Ha, on very fertile soil. Yeild goal is 5-8 tonnes / hect. (Liverpool plains NSW) The Range could be changed to reflect this ??

[edit] Water Requirement

Under "Growing Grain Sorghum", a phrase reads "The plants require up to 70–100 mm of moisture every 10 days [...]". This is clearly nonsensical, but which is true? Should the amount be "70–100 mm" or "up to 100 mm"?

[edit] Production

"slaves introduced sorghum into the U.S. in the early 17th century, where most of the world's sorghum is now produced", yet later: "Little research has been done to improve sorghum cultivars because the vast majority of sorghum production is done by subsistence farmers."

I suspect that the first quotae should read:

"...most of the world's commercially grown sorghum..." but I leave this to someone who knows the topic.

Production

I agree that the word "commercially" should be included. Also the sentence "Little research has been done to improve sorghum cultivars" is very subjective. It depends on where you come from, or what your comparing it to. eg. In Australia there are more hectares of Sorghum grown than Maize(Corn). Therfor there has been more research on impoving sorghum cultivars. If it stated "Compaired to Maize worldwide, there has been little research on sorghum cultivars etc." it would be better. Also, the sentence "vast majority of sorghum production is done by subsistence farmers" is this a fact??? Does it relate to hectares or tonnes???

--Yendor72 01:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Question: Does anybody know what types of alcohol are produced by this plant? Where? etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.131.211.55 (talk) 02:26, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Consolidation of "origins"

The history of sorghum appears in two different sections of the article. I have consolidated them, with apologies to the authors. Landroo 13:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorghum names

In the article is stated that sorghum is also called "kaffircorn". It is the name used for it by the European settlers in Southern Africa. Firstly, it is known as "kaffirkoring" and not "kaffircorn" as stated in the article. I think the last part is derived from either Dutch or German. Secondly, the term "kaffirkoring" has become illegal and carries a US$10,700 fine if used in public. It is because "kaffir" is the term used by European settlers to classify some of the indigenous inhabitants of Southern Africa. I will corrected the spelling and if anyone thinks it will be more apropriet to remove it, please do so. I feel the name should be removed. Above the fact that the word "kaffir" is illegal, it carries the history of racist atrocities committed during South Africa's apartheid regime. The word is a deep insult to a black person and should no longer be used.

The words used in the past for sorghum in South Africa were "kafferkoring" in Afrikaans and "kaffir corn" in English, not as stated above.

[edit] Cultural Signicance

The article totally lacks any information on the cultural and literary significance of the plant. As such it is incomplete and for my current purposes useless.

[edit] aluminum-tolerance gene in sorghum

"This research also has environmental implications for badly needed increases in food production on marginal soils in developing countries," said Kochian. "For example, if we can increase food production on existing lands, it could limit encroachment into other areas for agriculture." [1] Brian Pearson 05:28, 28 August 2007 (UTC)