HARVESTING AND USES OF SORGHUM

HARVESTING OF SORGHUM

Sorghum is usually harvested by hand when it has reached physiological maturity - which means the grain is hard and does not produce milk when crushed. Cut the heads with sickles or a sharp knife from plants in the field or cut the whole plant and remove the heads later. Sun-dry the harvested panicles to moisture levels of 12-13 % and thresh and store the grain.

USES OF SORGHUM

Sorghum is a versatile crop. Some types are boiled like rice, some milled to flour for porridge, some "malted" like barley for beer, some baked like wheat into flatbreads, and some popped like popcorn for snacks. A few types have sugary grains and are boiled in the green stage like sweet corn. The whole plant is often used as forage, hay, or silage.

The stems of other types yield sugar, syrup, and even liquid fuels for powering vehicles or cooking meals. The living plants are used for windbreaks, for cover crops, and for staking yams and other heavy climbers. The seeds are fed to poultry, cattle, and swine

Mzee Matheka who lives in a village in Kitui district of Kenya says “The high cost of Kerosene has made us to use dried stems of sorghum for cooking. I don’t know where i could have got money to buy kerosene considering the hard economic times,” such stories abound in many parts of the world and the importance of sorghum is apparent.

Sorghum plays an important role as a food security crop especially in semi arid lands of Kenya. This is because of its adaptation where it rolls up its leaves and thus decreasing transpiration. Sorghum, changing fortunes Sorghum has been viewed as a crop for the poor and marginalized communities in the drought-prone arid and semi-arid regions of Kenya.