Anticlimactic: Milo Harvest 2019

Say "harvest" in a room of farmers and it could be a little like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
However, milo harvest on our farm this year was anticlimactic. While Kansas grows more sorghum than any other U.S. state, here on the County Line, we are not contributing much to the total.

In 2014, Kansas ranked first in grain sorghum production in the U.S. with more than 200 million bushels grown, which equated to more than 40 percent of the country's total production. 

The use of sorghum for human consumption is being developed further in countries where malnutrition and hunger are prevalent. Kansas State University College of Agriculture Ag Report says:

In the Mara Region of Tanzania, one of the most starved areas of the world, K-State grain scientist Sajid Alavi is part of a research team working to improve child nutrition and health by providing a sorghum-soybean porridge blend to children younger than 5. ... While the results of the five-month study are yet to be finalized, Alavi said the early indications are that children were more healthy and had average growth rates.

But milo is getting some additional traction in the U.S., too, as consumers seek gluten-free alternatives. On a Discover Kansas trip with our Kansas Master Farmer Homemaker group a couple of years ago, we toured NuLife Market in Scott City.

NuLife Market Founder and President Earl Roemer gave us a tour. Earl’s family has farmed in the western Kansas for four generations. For years, his family grew grain sorghum – also called milo – as a feed grain crop for livestock. But then Earl began exploring how sorghum could be a human food source, especially as more and more consumers wanted gluten-free products. Sorghum has no gluten.

He admits that the early grain sorghum products “tasted like cardboard and the texture was like sand.” In 2007, Earl founded NuLife Market in Scott City to produce and market sorghum-based products and sell sorghum ingredients to other food companies.

NuLife uses sorghum grown in the region, providing value-added opportunities for area farmers. And now NuLife supplies sorghum and sorghum products for companies like Kashi, Bear Naked, Go Lean and Annie's Organic, just to name a few. Their sorghum products can be found in more than a thousand products, such as gluten-free baked goods, cereal bars and snacks, represented by some 80 brands. Nu Life Market is shipping its products coast to coast and beyond.

Our little milo crop just travels a few miles to the Zenith branch of the Kanza Co-op. Some of the milo in our area goes to the ethanol plant near Pratt.

 We only had 95 acres of milo, so it only took a couple of afternoons from start to finish.

It was not a bin buster in yield either. The overall average was 40.1 bushels per acre, with a range from 27 to 67 bushels per acre on different fields.

I came home from an afternoon meeting and decided I'd better go ride the combine if I wanted to experience milo harvest at all this year. A parts run took me away from the field the other afternoon.

Compared to wheat, the whole life cycle of milo is much shorter, too. Randy planted the crop in early June.

By June 13, it was up and growing.

June 13, 2019
 

By August 23, when I took the photo below, the milo was headed out and starting to turn.

 And, with that, the sun sets on another harvest of 2019.

Sunrise and Sunset on a Milo Crop

A pastel blanket of sky snuggled in over the milo field behind our house. The pink tinges I'd glimpsed while filling my coffee cup lured me outside on a brisk October morning.

The sunrise is a lesson in celebrating the moment:

Miracles come in moments.

Be ready and willing.

Wayne Dyer

The sky shifts subtly, minute by minute, as more sunlight streaks the sky.

And then the sunrise gives way to the day. While photographers talk about the "golden hour" at dusk, the first light of morning also colors the world in a unique brand of light.

Later that same day (Tuesday), Randy began harvesting the milo, also known as grain sorghum. We only had 110 acres to cut, including the field behind our house where I watched the sunrise, and another a mile south.

We planted the crop on May 26. (Click here for a blog post that shows its progress through the summer.)

This harvest only took a couple of afternoons. The field behind the house yielded 62.4 bushels per acre, while the south field was 61 bushels per acre. Another fall task is crossed off the list.