By Jessica Domel
News Editor
Wet weather and good timing have led to great grain sorghum yields in the Concho Valley region of Texas.
Tom Green County farmer Doug Wilde reports yields from 4,000 to 8,000 pounds per acre.
“The yields were really good this year. Dryland was comparable to irrigated. In most of the irrigated patches, farmers just said, ‘I really never even turned on the irrigation, so I really can call it dryland,’” Wilde said in an interview with the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network.
Farmers there are about halfway through harvesting the crop, which was delayed a bit by wet weather.
“It’s coming along really well,” Wilde said. “There are combines and trucks running everywhere.”
The wet spring helped most crops in the region, as did good timing.
“Most of the farmers planted the first part of April, and it seems to be that’s the key in the Concho Valley and West Texas area. Plant sorghum early or late. If you plant it in the middle, usually the heat in June and July will dry it up so fast,” Wilde said.
New technologies and new varieties have also helped farmers whose sorghum crops have been plagued by destructive sugarcane aphids.
“The new breeding that has come out with some of these sorghum varieties has really helped the drought tolerance and increased the yields, too,” Wilde said. “They’ve got some natural occurrence for the resistance of these aphids that has shown some promise, also.”
Although the majority of Wilde’s fields didn’t contain sugarcane aphids thanks to good timing and pesticide, the pests took over one field rapidly.
Fortunately for Wilde, the aphids moved into the field late enough that he was still able to harvest the crop.