UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



BULLETIN No. 698 



JESp* Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry ^ 



^^S^'i^U WM. A. TAYLOR. Chief A\/^^St. 



Washington, D. C. 



PROFESSIONAL PAPER 



October 31, 1918 



GRAIN-SORGHUM EXPERIMENTS IN THE 

 PANHANDLE OF TEXAS. 



By Carleton R. Ball, Cerealist in Charge, and Benton E. Rothgeb, Scientific 

 Assistant in Charge of Grain-Sorghum and Broom-Corn Investigations, Office of Cereal 

 Investigations. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction 1 



The Panhandle 2 



Location 2 



Altitude and drainage 4 



Soil 4 



Climatic conditions 4 



Recent agricultural history 16 



The cereal field stations 16 



The grain sorghums 17 



Classification 17 



The grain sorghums— Continued. 



Experimental conditions 20 



Varietal experiments 25 



The milo-durra group 26 



The kafir group 53 



The kaoliang group , 74 



The shallu group 86 



Comparative yields of all the groups . 87 



Conclusions 89 



INTRODUCTION. 



The agricultural development of the district known as the Pan- 

 handle of Texas is an interesting study. It is the story of four 

 successive stages — free range, fenced range, attempts at grain farm- 

 ing, and finally mixed farming. In this last stage stock raising is 

 again the basis, and the chief crops are those that furnish feed. 

 Chief of all such crops are the sorghums, especially the grain- 

 producing varieties. 



The whole history of the grain sorghums has been a history of 

 their ecology. Any experimental study of these crops must be a 

 study of their response to environing conditions. The southern half 

 of the Great Plains area, which properly may be called the grain- 

 sorghum belt, is a section where crop production is governed almost 

 entirely by the quantity and distribution of the annual precipitation. 



The sorghums are able to produce under conditions of less moisture 

 and its more uneven distribution than are other crops; hence their 

 extensive use. An understanding of how the different groups and 

 varieties respond to the varying seasonal conditions is necessary to 

 a further increase iij their usefulness. To show this response, it is 

 necessary to present chmatic data much more completely than is 



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