Idaho Amber sorghum
Price range: $4.00 through $8.00
(Sorghum bicolor)
Tall, slim grasses with black seedheads. Quite beautiful, and early enough to mature in my area, a major challenge for sorghum in Ontario. This is a sweet sorghum or “sorgo;” traditionally the stems of the sorgos were pressed and the extracted (bright green!) juice boiled down to make syrup. In the early 1940s, the University of Idaho’s Agricultural Research Station was exploring the potential of sorgos for making silage in drier parts of the state (sorghum being notably more drought tolerant than corn). They released this variety in 1944 as the culmination of that work, as described in their Circular No. 97.
It is worth noting that the seed of the sorgos is not ideal for eating; hard and bitter compared to the grain sorghums. It is also harder to thresh. So grow this if your goal is molasses or fodder, not grain!
Plant in late May-early June. Direct-sow ¼” deep 8-12” apart. Harvest stalks for syrup two weeks after milk stage, seeds when they cannot be dented with a fingernail. Likes similar conditions to corn.