SUDAN GRASS AND RELATED PLANTS. 



15 



A second natural cross between sorghum and Johnson grass was 

 discovered on September 16, 1913, on the farm of J. W. Austin, Pilot 

 Point, Tex. This was located in a field of Honey sorgo, and is quite 

 surely a cross between Honey sorgo and Johnson grass. Mr. Austin 

 has applied to this cross the name "Johnsorgo." This hybrid has 

 abundant and very large rootstocks and will probably not become 

 popular in the South except as a hay and pasture crop on fields already 





















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Fig. 11.— A row of " Johnsorgo," F. C. I. No. 8557, 8 feet tall, at the Arlington Experimental Farm, Va., 



October 11, 1915. 



infested with Johnson grass. Johnsorgo is remarkably like Sudan 

 grass in appearance (fig. 11), but is much less subject to the attacks 

 of the red-spot, or sorghum blight, a disease which is very destructive 

 to Sudan grass in warm, moist climates. Johnsorgo is the most prom- 

 ising of all the hybrids between sorghum and Johnson grass yet 

 tested. 



In order to provide material for a more definite study of these 

 hybrids several artificial crosses of sorghum and Johnson grass were 

 made. The first of these, F. C. I. No. 6573, a cross between Black 

 Amber sorgo and Johnson grass, was made at the Arlington Experi- 

 mental Farm, Va., in September, 1912. The first-generation plant, 

 which was grown in the greenhouse that winter from a hybrid seed 

 which developed on the Black Amber sorgo, looked more like Johnson 

 grass than sorgo, but had no rootstocks. Seed from this F x plant was 



