Surrounded by Milo

It's that time of year for Milo or Sorghum growing. We always have some in our area around this time but almost every field is full of it this year.   The exception is our Gringo watermelon grower and the mango orchards. We were also surrounded by it in the Jocotepec area and I learned up there it's part of their usual crop rotation program.  I was surprised at the number of uses listed below but I like the popcorn idea.   Most used for cattle feed around here.

Sorghum is a coarse, upright growing grass that is used for both grain and forage production. Grain sorghum is shorter and has been bred for higher grain yields.

Grain sorghum is also called "milo" and is a major feed grain for cattle.

Sorghum has a very hard kernel, which makes it resistant to disease and damage but harder to digest for animals.

Sorghum is ground, cracked, steam flaked, and/or roasted. It can be cooked like rice, made into porridge, malted for beer, baked into flatbreads and popped like popcorn.

Sorghum originated in Egypt 4,000 years ago and today is Africa's second most important cereal. Africa now produces 20 million tons of sorghum per year, a third of the world total.

Sorghum has now become an important crop in Latin America as well. The crop has gained prominence in Mexico over the past half-century, and the number of hectares of sorghum planted in the country grew over 1,000 percent from 1958 to 1980. Mexico has large areas of dry farmland, and sorghum requires less water than maize and wheat.