Sorghum
What is the optimum seeding rate for sorghum?
Producers often plant much more sorghum seed than needed.
Grain sorghum's niche is its ability to produce under droughty conditions. Thus, producers should not diminish this strength by overplanting, which substantially increases interplant competition for water.
Grain sorghum has tremendous ability to compensate for variable growing conditions by producing tillers, especially if plants are spaced uniformily.
Since grain sorghum is normally planted on less productive soils, try establishing a moderately - low plant population. If plenty of early season moisture is available, the plants will tiller extensively and increase its yield potential. If early season conditions are dry, the sorghum won't tiller, leaving more moisture for head and grain development later in the season.
Conversely, when you establish a high plant population, if significant moisture stress develops, there is no compensation method for plants to reduce water competition between plants, resulting in severe plant stress and substantially reduced yield potential.
A final plant population ranging from 40,000 to 70,000 plants per acre should produce optimum grain sorghum grain yields grown in dryland culture.
Growers should try to establish 60,000 to 90,000 plants per acre if they have the capacity to irrigate grain sorghum.
Sorghum seeding rate should exceed the population goal by 10 to 20% depending upon seedbed conditions and planting date. This over-planting rate is relatively high because sorghum usually has poorer establishment success than corn.
Grain sorghum seed usually has about 14,000 seeds per pound. Thus, you should normally expect to plant four to five pounds of seed per acre for dryland grain sorghum.
