Sorghum

Sorghum
Sorghum is a grass-like plant that ranks up with wheat and barley as one of the main cereal crops; it is the third most important cereal crop in the United States of America and the fifth most important in the world. There are many different species of sorghum: a group of species of sorghum called "Sweet Sorghum" has sweet juices, which can be used in a sorghum molasses or in other forms as a sweetener, and the grains can be eaten, in many ways, like one would eat wheat; many types of sorghum are also used for animal feed and fodder; and around 10% of sorghum, mostly "Sweet Sorghum", is used similar to corn to produce ethanol, a topic which you can hear more about on the YouTube videos below. Sorghum is widely grown in arid and tropical climates; it is used most widely in Africa, and it is also a staple crop in South America and India. It can be substituted for corn in areas where corn/maize doesn't grow as well, as it has a high protein content and can survive under harsh conditions. And as learned in __The Human Web__ (by J.R. and William McNeill), it was a staple crop in sub-Saharan Africa thousands (three to five thousand) years ago, as it is today.

Some pictures of sorghum: [|http://www.purcellmountainfarms.com/Sorghum%20Grain%20crop%20043.jpg] [|http://cropwatch.unl.edu/photos/cwphoto/sorghum.jpg] []

(Interesting note: the Swahili word for sorghum is "mtaka" (m-TAH-kah).)

Videos: -Joseph Cornett, A Block A video about the consideration of sweet sorghum as a source of biofuel; it's a bit long (over 10 minutes), but it has a lot of good information: [] A short (1.5 minutes) video about making syrup from sorghum at the Sorghum Festival (yes, they have a Sorghum Festival!) in Georgia: [] An interesting video about a family harvesting sorghum by hand in Africa (some interesting music as well in one of the native languages, but I'm not quite sure which one it is): []

Sources: [|www.wisegeek.com/what-is-sorghum.htm] [] [|www.grains.org/sorghum]

-Joseph Cornett, A Block