32 
BULLETIN 
S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
AMARILLO, TEX. 
Experiments at Aniarillo were conducted at the cereal field station 
in cooperation with the Office of Cereal Investigations. 8 Weather 
records which are available for a period of 30 years show that Ania- 
rillo has an average annual rainfall of 20.99 inches, 15.68 inches of 
which conies during the growing season. (See fig. 3 and Table 1.) 
This seasonal rainfall is almost as large as that at Chillicothe and is 
better distributed. The average for the period while the sorghums 
were under test was somewhat below the normal. The seasons of 
1913 and 1916 were unusually poor, while that of 1915 was excep- 
tionally favorable from the standpoint of rainfall. 
The altitude at Amarillo is 3,600 feet, which results in a rather 
short growing season. Sumac sorgo seldom matures good seed crops 
Fig. 10.— Honey sorgo at Chillicothe, Tex., in 1920. Seeded May 28. Photographed September 17. 
in this location, but it is one of the most popular forage varieties. 
The evaporation rate is very high at Aniarillo, and in periods of low 
rainfall the crops suffer, because transpiration is rapid and the reserve 
moisture in the soil is quickly exhausted. 
Insect pests have not been troublesome at Aniarillo: chinch bugs 
are perhaps most likely to damage the sorghums. Kernel smut is 
the most prevalent disease, but that has been easily controlled. 
In Table 6 are given the length of the growing season, average row 
space per plant and per stalk, height of plants, and the acre yields 
of air-dry fodder and threshed seed of the sorghum varieties under 
tost at Aniarillo. 
Table 6 reveals the fact that a period of five years is not sufficiently 
long to provide data for a reliable estimate of the value of sorghum 
^The tests at Amarillo were continued for only ftve years, L913 t<> L917, and were in charge of A. B. Cron. 
