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Difficulties in Growing the Crop. 



One of the chief difficulties encountered in growing 

 sorghum is that the seeds are small and susceptible to 

 cold moist weather. The remedy for this consists in 

 waiting until the ground is warm and sufficiently dry 

 before seeding. This will allow time for surface culture 

 with disk and harrow, thus warming the soil and killing 

 the first crop of weeds before seeding. 



On account of the small size of the seed, care must 

 be taken not to seed too deeply. In our experiments we 

 have found that when the seed is sown more than one 

 inch deep many of the seeds fail to germinate or fail to 

 penetrate to the surface. If a heavy beating rain crusts 

 the surface, the same is true. For this reason it is very 

 difficult to secure good stands by planting in hills with 

 a corn planter. It is better to drill the seed rather close- 

 ly in the drill row. Even if the stand resulting is too 

 thick, it is preferable to one that is uneven. Good 

 stands have been secured year after year where suffic- 

 ient care was taken to plant the seed shallow in drill 

 rows, but hill planting has usually resulted in poor 

 stands, largely due to planting the seed too deep. 



The early growth of sorghum is very slow. That 

 is another reason for late planting after killing the first 

 weed growth by surface cultivation. 



Comparative Yields of Varieties. 



The following tables show the comparative values 

 of the different varieties which have been tested at the 

 various experiment farms. 



