Sorghum

Plant Characteristics

Habit		grass
Lifespan:	⌛	perennial, annual
Poisonous:	☠	see text

Cultivation

Features:	✓	drought tolerant

Scientific Names

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Sorghum is a genus of numerous species of grasses, some of which are raised for grain and many of which are used as fodder plants either cultivated or as part of pasture. The plants are cultivated in warmer climates worldwide. Species are native to tropical and subtropical regions of all continents in addition to the South West Pacific and Australasia. Sorghum is in the subfamily Panicoideae and the tribe Andropogoneae (the tribe of big bluestem and sugar cane).

For more specific details on commercially exploited Sorghum see commercial sorghum.

Numerous Sorghum species are used for food (as grain and in sorghum syrup or "sorghum molasses"), fodder, the production of alcoholic beverages, as well as biofuels. Most species are drought tolerant and heat tolerant and are especially important in arid regions where the grain is staple or one of the staples for poor and rural people. They form an important component of pastures in many tropical regions. Sorghum species are an important food crop in Africa, Central America, and South Asia and is the "fifth most important cereal crop grown in the world".

A Sorghum species, Johnson grass, is classified as an invasive species in the US by the Department of Agriculture.

Some species of sorghum can contain levels of hydrogen cyanide, hordenine and nitrates lethal to grazing animals in the early stages of the plant's growth. Stressed plants, even at later stages of growth, can also contain toxic levels of cyanide.^{[citation needed]}

Species

• Sorghum almum
• Sorghum amplum
• Sorghum angustum
• Sorghum arundinaceum
• Sorghum bicolor (primary cultivated species)
  • Sorghum bicolor subsp. drummondii — Sudan grass
• Sorghum brachypodum
• Sorghum bulbosum
• Sorghum burmahicum
• Sorghum controversum
• Sorghum drummondii
• Sorghum ecarinatum
• Sorghum exstans
• Sorghum grande
• Sorghum halepense
• Sorghum interjectum
• Sorghum intrans
• Sorghum laxiflorum
• Sorghum leiocladum
• Sorghum macrospermum
• Sorghum matarankense
• Sorghum miliaceum
• Sorghum nigrum
• Sorghum nitidum
• Sorghum plumosum
• Sorghum propinquum
• Sorghum purpureosericeum
• Sorghum stipoideum
• Sorghum timorense
• Sorghum trichocladum
• Sorghum versicolor
• Sorghum virgatum
• Sorghum vulgare

Hybrids:

• Sorghum × almum
• Sorghum × drummondii

Gallery

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External links

• w:Sorghum. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
• Sorghum QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)