SUDAN GRASS AND RELATED PLANTS. 61 



separated from the chaff, either by passing it through a fanning mill 

 or winnowing it in a breeze. Machine-thrashed seed usually has to 

 be recleaned in a fanning mill before it is ready for sale. 



Good recleaned seed weighs 36 to 40 pounds per bushel. Seed 

 grown in the humid sections where the vegetative growth has been 

 luxuriant and the conditions for ripening not particularly favorable 

 is not often plump, and only a small percentage is hulled in thrash- 

 ing. Such seed with the glumes attached usually weighs 30 to 36 

 pounds per bushel. 



Sudan grass seed if stored in good condition, either bagged or loose 

 in a bin, keeps much better than seed of the larger sorghums, like 

 kafir, milo, or feterita. No trouble need be anticipated if the seed 

 is dry and well cured when placed in storage. 



SEED GRADES. 



The quantity of Sudan grass seed handled by the trade has not 

 been large enough yet to call for the establishment of grades. Cer- 

 tain seed grades based primarily on color were suggested by the 

 Texas Agricultural Experiment Association in August, 1914. These 

 grades have not been generally accepted, because they did not indi- 

 cate the quality of the seed, as seed grades should, but attempted to 

 establish values for different strains of the grass. According to the 

 proposed Texas standards, seed might be classed as grade 1 only 

 when it was "pure creamhul"; that is, absolutely free from seeds with 

 black or purple glumes. Grade 2 was described as " creamhul with 

 not to exceed 5 per cent blackhul" and grade 3 as "creamhul with 

 more than 5 per cent blackhul." The chief idea in the advocacy of 

 such grades was that the detection of Johnson grass seeds would be 

 much easier if the Sudan grass seeds were uniformly light colored. 

 This is true, because more than 90 per cent of the Johnson grass seeds 

 are black or purple. 



The general effect of the Texas grades was to put a premium on 

 strains of Sudan grass with light-colored ("creamhul") seeds. No 

 superiority in forage value attached to or was claimed for these 

 strains. The impracticability of such grades was realized when it 

 became known that climate had much to do with the coloration of 

 the seed. Seed produced in the arid regions was more often "pure 

 creamhul" than that grown in the humid regions. Even in the arid 

 regions seed harvested early in the season might be without color, 

 while that from the same field harvested later in the fall would con- 

 tain a large percentage of black and purple seeds. Mr. R. E. Blair 

 (2, p. 16) reports from the experiment station at Bard, Calif., as 

 follows : 



As the cool nights of autumn set in, Sudan grass seed has a tendency to become 

 highly colored in red and black shades * * *. The fields producing a second 

 crop of highly colored seed produced a first crop of excellent light-colored seed. 



