Sorghum is a warmweather crop, which requires high temperatures for good germination and growth. Key access and utilization descriptors for sorghum genetic resources corporate author. Moench is a crop indigenous to africa, where it appears to have been domesticated in ethiopia about 5 000 years ago. Sorghum is also known as mabele thoro, amazinba and amabele. Ball, agronomist in charge of grain sorghum investigations, and rec ommend its publication as bulletin xo. Confusion in the names of sorghum varieties is common. Eastern province is a major sorghum growing zone in kenya. Sorghum is adapted to warm and dry climate but the greatest area of the crop is cultivated in droughtprone areas of the world. Sorghum was also grown in india before recorded history and in assyria as early as 700 bc. A complex history of rearrangement in an orthologous. Sorghum sudan grass, or sorghumsudangrass, is a fastgrowing cover crop with an extensive root system that thrives in the heat of summer.
Sweet sorghum will thrive under drier and warmer conditions than many other crops and is grown. It is grown for home consumption unless there is a bumper crop, or if cash is needed. These crops largely contribute to food and nutritional security of the country. International crops research institute for the semiarid tropics icrisat. International sorghum and millet collaborative research support program intsormil crsp 2010 sorghum. An ancient, healthy and nutritious old world cereal. The best time to plant is when there is su fficient water. The successful breeding history of grain and forage sorghum demonstrates that biomass and sweet sorghum hybrids can be developed using the same approaches. It is the member of the grass family poaceae or gramineae. Full text of the history and distribution of sorghum.
Importance of sorghum in africa j r n taylor department of food science, university of pretoria, pretoria 0002, south africa, email. The plant likely originated in africa, where it is a major food crop, and has numerous varieties, including grain sorghums, used for food. Origin, history, morphology, production, improvement, and. Sorghum is a staple food crop for millions of poor people in the semiarid tropics of africa and asia. Globally, it produces approximately 70 million metric tons of grain from about 50 million hectares of land. It is also known from various vernacular names such as french. Moench is an indigenous crop to africa, and though commercial needs and uses may change over time, sorghum will remain a basic staple food for many rural communities. To include sorghum in a book on lost crops, on the face of it, seems like a gross mistake. Diagnosing sorghum production problems ksre bookstore. Moench in serbia1 article pdf available in economic botany 652. It is a tall growing grassy plant with flat leaves like maize and produces grains in a. The botanical classification, origin, history, morphology, production, cultivar choice. While one study indicated that sorghum should be divided into three genera.
Sorghum and millets in human nutrition is a new addition to the fao food and nutrition series. The earliest known record of sorghum comes from an archeological dig at nabta playa, near the egyptiansudanese border, dated 8,000 b. Sorghum, sorghum bicolor, also called great millet, indian millet, milo, durra, orshallu, cereal grain plant of the grass family and its edible starchy seeds. Its name comes from the fact that it is a hybrid, a cross between sorghums grown for forage and a type of grass called sudan grass or sudangrass, which is native to eastern. Moench, is a staple food for millions of the poorest and most food insecure people in the semiarid tropics sat of africa and asia. Sorghum is the third most important cereal crop grown in uganda after maize and finger millet. Pdf origin, history, morphology, production, improvement. The indian national program with exhaustive testing in coordinated trials has released over 31 hybrids and.
The newest addition to the wiley series in crop science, this book is an allinone guide to sorghum, one of the eight major grain crops grown worldwide. Sorghum originated in africa, and is now cultivated widely in tropical and subtropical regions. Health benefits, side effects, fun facts, nutrition facts and history sorghum originated in africa 30005000 years ago. Sorghum commonly known as broom corn, great millet, durra, jowari and milo is a large grain plant native to northern africa which is widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions these days. The publication is broad in scope and coverage, starting with the history and nature of sorghum and millets and dealing with production, utilization and consumption. Soybean plants were domesticated between 17th and 11th century bc in the eastern half of china where they were cultivated into a food crop. In these areas, sorghum is usually grown with limited inputs in conditions of sparse rainfall, low soil fertility, and face a range of disease and. Subsequently, reports and descriptions of the disease were made from various points in the united states sorghum acres planted during the 2002 growing season. The latter is especially true in the more drought prone areas of south africa where this hardy crop provides better household food security than maize. Historical geographic distribution of the five basic races of cultivated sorghum.
Sorghum spread throughout africa, and along the way, adapted to a wide range of environments from the highlands of ethiopia to the semiarid sahel. By using all four genomes, it was possible to describe the nature, timing, and lineages of most of the genic rearrangements that have differentiated. Most of millet crops are native of india and are popularly. Sorghum sorghum bicolor is a glutenfree grain and is the fifth most commonly grown grain crop in the world behind wheat, rice, corn, and barley. Broomcorn in south eastern europe see is part of an important niche market of natural, renewable brooms made from the panicles of sorghum. The main importers of sorghum are japan, mexico, the former ussr cis and venezuela. One of the most common bacterial diseases of sorghum is bacterial leaf stripe kucharek. Sorghum is a purplish red grain that grows at the top of a cornlike plant. Sorghum sudan grass, according to the quantity of seed planted, is grown on more acres in texas than grain sorghum, though the acreage of sorghum planted for grain expanded to five million or six million acres following the mechanization of harvesting. Sorghum grain ranks 5th in cereals for global production see cereal statistics sorghum is a genus with many species and subspecies, and there are several types of sorghum, including grain sorghums, grass sorghums for pasture and hay, sweet sorghums for syrups, and broomcorn. The genetic resources available to sorghum breeders, contained in both the currently utilized breeding germplasm, as well as the extensive public germplasm collections, represent a rich.
The continent produces about 20 million tonnes of sorghum per annum, about onethird of the world crop. Within most developing countries, the sorghum crop rarely reaches the market. The sequences of large insert clones containing genomic dna that is orthologous to the maize adh1 region were obtained for sorghum, rice, and the adh1 homoeologous region of maize, a remnant of the tetraploid history of the zea lineage. The stalks of fullseason hybrids usually are larger and stand better than earlier hybrids.
In india, it is grown during both rainy and postrainy seasons with season specific cultivars. It is the fifth most important cereal crop after wheat, corn, rice and barley. It requires relatively little water and grows in harsh environments where other crops do not grow easily. One species is grown for grain, while many others are used as fodder plants, either cultivated in warm climates worldwide or naturalized in pasture lands.
Moench gramineae includes all cultivated sorghums as well as a group of semiwild plants mostly associated. The taxonomy of sorghum and the millets is presented in table 1. The centre of origin and domestication for cultivated sorghum is considered to be. Most viral diseases of sorghum are mosaics with the most important being maize dwarf mosaic toler, 1985. It is one of the important dryland crops grown in marginal soils and a source of feed, fodder and biofuel apart from food. In the 1940s sorghum became the leading cereal crop in the state for the first time. With subsistence agriculture practiced by majority of small holder farmers, yield gaps are high and. Sorghum culture the handbook of texas online texas. Pdf sorghum is a staple food crop for millions of poor people in the semiarid tropics of africa and asia. The trade in sorghum is small compared with the major grains such as wheat, maize, barley and rice. Maturity a good fullseason hybrid will outyield a good earlyseason hybrid every time, other conditions being equal and favorable for sorghum growth.
The plants are cultivated in warmer climates worldwide. History of the disease anthracnose of sorghum was first described in the united states from texas in 1911 10. It is widely grown in the drier short grass areas of northern and. Sweetstem sorghum is a multipurpose crop, yielding food in the form of grain, fuel in the form of ethanol from its stem juice, and fodder from its leaves and grain. All about sorghum the united sorghum checkoff program. Being a c4 species with higher photosynthetic ability and greater nitrogen and water use efficiency, sorghum is genetically suited to hot and dry agroecologies, where it is difficult to grow other food crops. Sorghum is a genus of flowering plants in the grass family poaceae. Sorghum is the 5th most important grain crop after wheat, maize, rice and barley.
It is one of the most droughttolerant cereal crops currently under cultivation. Sorghum is an important cereal crop in hot and dry agroecologies, where it is difficult to grow other food crops. In 2853 bc, emperor shengnung of china named five sacred plants soybeans, rice, wheat, barley, and millet. It has diverse uses as food, feed, fodder, fuel, fiber, and industrial crop. I have the honor to transmit herewith a paper entitled the history and distribution of sorghum, by mr. Sorghum facts, health benefits and nutritional value. It is revealing that there is such an enormous diversity in sizes of the grains, from sorghum, which. This article is a summary of almost 60 years of experiences concerning broomcorn research, development, and production in see, and more specifically in serbia. Sweet sorghum is any of the many varieties of sorghum which have a high sugar content. Seventeen of the 25 species are native to australia, with the range of some extending to africa, asia, mesoamerica, and certain islands in the indian and pacific oceans. Diagnosing sorghum production problems in kansas kansas state university agricultural experiment station and cooperative extension service. Origin, history, morphology, production, improvement, and utilization of broomcorn sorghum bicolor l.
Staggenborg encyclopedia of life support systems eolss producing states in united states include kansas, texas, oklahoma, nebraska, new. Commercial sorghum species are native to tropical and subtropical regions of africa and asia other names include durra, egyptian millet, feterita, guinea. Pdf origin, history, morphology, production, improvement, and. While presenting information in adequate detail for scientists, it is also an invaluable reference for growers, processors, and grain merchants.
The same variety is grown and the seed marketed under many different names, and the same name is. The origin and early domestication of sorghum took place in northeastern africa. To enable direct comparison, they are shown in their relative sizes. Pdf origin, history, morphology, production, improvement, and utilization of broomcorn sorghum bicolor l.
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