SUDAN GRASS AND RELATED PLANTS. 



23 



maps show that the successful production of Sudan grass is correlated 

 with high temperatures during the growing season and to a less 

 extent with rainfall. 



USE AS A CATCH CROP. 



Sudan grass will be widely grown as an emergency hay crop in 

 much the same manner as millet. As a means of overcoming a 

 threatened shortage in the supply of hay required to carry the 

 farmer's live stock through the winter, Sudan grass is fully as good 

 as millet. (Fig. 15.) The growing season is short, the quality of 

 the hay is very good, and the yields of Sudan grass are usually 

 higher than millet yields. Millet in the North and sorgo (sweet 



Fig. 14. — Outline map, showing by States and other indicated geographic divisions (1) the average length 

 (in days) of the growing season or frost-free period, (2) the mean temperature (in degrees F.) of the grow- 

 ing season, (3) the normal annual rainfall (in inches), and (4) the percentage of success with Sudan grass 

 grown in different sections, as reported by several thousand farmers who received trial packages of seed 

 from the United States Department of Agriculture in 1915 and 1916. Frost is likely to occur any month 

 of the year in the western section of Wyoming (marked with an asterisk). 



sorghum) in the South have been the most popular catch crops. 

 A comparison of these two crops with Sudan grass is presented in 

 Table II. 



Table II shows that millet is equal or superior to Sudan grass in 

 the northern Great Plains and that it yields about the same in the 

 timothy and clover belt if only one cutting is considered in the yield 

 of both crops. In the southern Great Plains Sudan grass yields 

 much more than millet. Sweet sorghum grown in cultivated rows 

 or in drilled or broadcasted seedings outyields both Sudan grass and 

 millet, but the hay is coarse and unsuitable to handle with a fork. 

 The aftermath or second growth of sorghum is not as safe to pasture 

 as that of Sudan grass, and none of the millets make sufficient second 



