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Show PURE SORGHUM SEED BY ROGUEING PLATS Go Over Field and Carefully Remove Off-Type Plants. Work Can Be Done Easily by Man on Foot With Dwarf Varieties, While With Taller Sorts It Is Practical Prac-tical to Use Horse. (Prepared by the United States Department Depart-ment of Agriculture. ) In order to obtain pure sorghum seed it is usually necessary to go over the field enrefully after it has headed out and remove the rogues or off-type plants. Every plant which does not conform to the type which is desired should be cut. down, or, better, pulled up so that there will he no danger of the production of seed from tillers produced by the rogue. In dwarf varieties the rogueing can be done easily by a man on foot, but in the taller growing sorts it is most practical to ride through the field on . horseback so that the workers can see 8 ryArE;A. Superior Sorghum Field. over the top of the field and thus more readily determine the position of the rogues which must be removed. The horse can be securely muzzled to prevent pre-vent injury other than that occasioned by the tramping down of plants. It is not profitable to rogue fields which are intended for the production of grain or forage, but in the producing produc-ing of seed, either for home planting or the market, careful rougeing gives returns both in dollars and cents and in the satisfaction of growing pure seed. Sorghums being open-pollinated are subject to almost endless hybridization hybridi-zation if stray plants of other varieties are allowed to mature in the field. This intermixing of varieties results in lack of uniformity in ripening as well as in the size of the plants, thus : causing difficulty in harvesting and marketing the crop. The use of pure seed varieties which are known to be adapted to the farmers' climatic conditions condi-tions will be rewarded in bigger and better crops. |
