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Show COST OP GRAIV SORGHUMS OIT WITH POWER FARMING Dwarf grain sorghums- developed devel-oped by State and Federal plant breeders to fit large ecale wheat machinery are making the Central Cen-tral Great Plains more completely complet-ely suited to extensive livestock farming by supplying a low-cost grain. M'ost of the Great Plains area is too dry for corn. The grain sorghums, which are only slightly slight-ly lower in feeding value than corn, do well, but their yield per acre usually is Tow, which means a large acreage. Such an acreage of the old-fashioned, tall grain sorghum was not profitable, pro-fitable, when it had to be planted plant-ed and tended like corn. When power machinery was introduced for wheat, farmers attempted to use it for grain sorghum, but the stalks were too tall to be cut successfully with the combine. Plant breeders breed-ers then developed Wheatland, Sooner, and other dwarf varieties. var-ieties. Now the same machinery is used for wheat and the grain sorghums. A man with a team will harvest aDOut an acre and a half to two acres a day by hand. A fifteen foot combine requiring re-quiring two men, will harvest and thresh twenty to twenty-five acres a day. "This vast inland empire of western Kansas, the Okalahoma Panhandle, western Texas, and the eastern edge of New Mexico has thus become the greatest producing area for sorghums in the world potentially, if not actually ac-tually ", says A. F. Swanson, agronomist in the United States Department of Agriculture, at the Fort Hays (Kansas) Experiment Experi-ment Station. "In this vast region re-gion there are the level, fertile, tight soils for wheat as a cash crop and winter pasture, the more rolling and sandy soils for sorghums and occasional hay crops, and In addition large areas of native grass for summer sum-mer pasturage. With moderate rainfall, this region is ideal for livestock and grain farming." "Washington County," states Walter Smith, County Agent, "is making rather a large increased planting of dwarf milo maize this year. It is being planted on the irrigated farms and also on dry farms. The County Agent estimates that there will be approximately ap-proximately 500 acres of this crop this year." |