Farming Podcast | Can Grain Sorghum Gain Acres? | XtremeAg

00:00:00 Grain sorghum, it's drought tolerant. It has an opportunity to become a bigger crop in the future. And that's what we're gonna be talking about, the future 00:00:06 of grain sorghum here at Commodity Classic with my friends Brent and Jason. Welcome to Extreme ags Cutting the Curve podcast, 00:00:16 where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. And now here's your host, Damien Mason. 00:00:26 Hey there. Welcome to another fantastic live version of the Cutting the Curve podcast. It's actually not live. It's tape delayed 00:00:32 by the time you're gonna watch it, but we're doing this from Commodity Classic here on the floor in San Antonio. 00:00:36 I've got Bra Pearson. He is a fifth generation Kansas farmer. He is also the chairman of the Kansas Grain 00:00:42 Sorghum, uh, commission. He is joined by Jason Birkenfeld. Jason is a Texas farmer who has a tremendous amount 00:00:48 of experience farming in a very arid area, and also he produces grain sorghum, mostly for forage, meaning he gets fed to cattle. 00:00:56 So we're gonna dig into the future of this crop. You're excited to talk about this. It's your livelihood, it's part of your livelihood. 00:01:02 So I want you to go ahead and take the lead right here. Kansas, the number one producer of, uh, sorghum. I've had some of your people, um, on my own show before, 00:01:11 and I gotta tell you, I I think that this crop is poised for a big future, but we need demand. 00:01:19 Absolutely. Um, yeah, sorghum is, um, Kansas produces about 55% of the US crop. Um, we're about double of what the Texans grow. 00:01:27 And so I always like to point that out for 'em. Right. They, they love to hear that. And Other, other sorghum states tend 00:01:32 to be in the arid West Kansas, number one, Texas number two. Yes. Probably Thursday is Oklahoma. 00:01:38 Oklahoma, yeah. Colorado's in there a little bit also. Um, yeah, typically in the west. Uh, I do have some friends in Pennsylvania that grow. Yeah. 00:01:44 Um, continuing yield winners up there. Um, and uh, some guys that are working really hard on some 00:01:49 different domestic markets there. Yeah. So that might go more to bird seed. And then, so its uses are in places like Pennsylvania, 00:01:57 they're close to a population center. So that sorghum will go to bird seed. Yep. And then, then there's the export market Sure. 00:02:03 Much to China, which I want you to get into that. Sure. And then what he does is for Forge, I mean, let's get into that real quickly. 00:02:09 Jason Forage, I think this has got a great opportunity in a place like Texas, a whole bunch of cattle here, a whole bunch 00:02:14 of cattle in Kansas, and you ain't got a lot of water and you can produce this stuff. It's got energy and protein. Where's your stuff go? 00:02:21 That's correct. Uh, we feed, feed it all ourselves. So, uh, we grow it 'cause we need feed and, uh, our water's limited at this point. 00:02:28 So corn's kind of out of the question. So, uh, forage sorghum is just more forgiving. So chop the whole plant just like a 00:02:35 corn stalk going to corn silage. Yep. It's regular silage cutter and, uh, we direct chop it. So, uh, and I, I think management, uh, defines what kind 00:02:43 of feed value you get out of it versus a corn silage. So do You get more of a protein because it's got the seed 00:02:49 and the oil value versus corn? Or is it roughly the same? I don't know. Uh, you know, it depends on the harvest stage 00:02:56 and stuff as far as what good feed value you got, you get outta the grain. But there again, I, it varieties are so variable as far as 00:03:04 what kind of feed value they give. Uh, but, uh, you know, we've chosen what we grow, uh, just be because of the way it feeds, you know? 00:03:12 Yeah. So a different variety might not feed the same. So, so If I could add to that, um, so I'm, 00:03:18 I'm about four hours straight north to him, very similar climates, uh, just, just in a different state. We have a lot of dairy industry moved in, uh, 00:03:26 a lot of beef industry there. Um, and, and the, the sorghum silage is going to be a big component going forward. 00:03:33 The, the challenge with sorghum silage is if you process it like you're processing corn, corn kernels, as we all know, 00:03:39 are much larger than sorghum. Mm-hmm. Sorghum, sorghum kernels are much smaller. So the process that that we've been working on with, uh, 00:03:47 Kansas State and Texas Tech, uh, Juan Perino and Amarillo, uh, has been doing a lot of research on how to process sorghum silage to get the max maximum efficacy 00:03:57 of it to where it, it, it does come in very similar to a corn silage as far as used to. They'd say sorghum silage was 80% of corn silage. 00:04:06 Now we know it's much closer to 95 or even par meaning On par. Yeah. And also it's less water intensive. 00:04:11 So real opportunity here, if I'm looking at this as a producer or processor, whatever, is that we're gonna have a war on water. 00:04:19 I'm convinced about a war about water in these western states. The aala aquifer been reading about since the 1980s. 00:04:24 We've got friends that I know that are in the panhandle that say we punched a well, it wouldn't matter. They ain't got nothing to punch out of it. Yeah. 00:04:29 And so where's the water thing tie in and why is sorghum not catching on even faster than it's, Well make, no, make no mistake about it. 00:04:37 Water is the number one commodity on this planet, period. And, and if you have a lot of water, 00:04:42 you can have a lot of problems. And if you don't have any water, you have one problem. And, and that's kind of where we're at. 00:04:49 Uh, they'll go all is is declining. And, and we've had to become, uh, conservationalists we've had to become very, uh, 00:04:57 necessity breeds invention. Right. Uh, we've brought in different sources of, of ways to manage the water, to apply it, to put it down. 00:05:04 Uh, mobile drip irrigation, uh, subsurface drip irrigation, bubblers, we were talking about a lot. 00:05:09 Or even dry land. Or even dry land. Yeah. So Describe your crop production on sorghum and do you also do grow corn? 00:05:16 Uh, not anymore. Okay. Because of the water issue. Yep. We've had to quit. So, so, uh, you know, we've got a mix of irrigated and dry land ground. 00:05:23 It's more and more dry land every year. So, uh, and typically everything our farm produces is for our cattle. 00:05:30 Uh, which in the current economic situation is, is almost a must. But, um, so irrigated wise, 00:05:36 we grow forage sorghum for silage. Um, you know, it's interesting, uh, a couple years ago, I, I'm, I'm, I'm partnered with, uh, my dad and uncle 00:05:45 and his son, and so my dad and uncle are in their sixties. They own most of the ground and, 00:05:50 and they look at it from a legacy standpoint, what's, what's this look like in 50 years? And, uh, my dad posed the question two years ago. 00:05:58 It's like, Hey, what would this crop look like on half the inputs? You know, uh, we're still applying a lot of water. 00:06:04 You know, you try and push yields a forage, sorghum, it can use a lot. And, and so we went along the standpoint, 00:06:10 cowboy math cut the inputs in half. Right. And, uh, with forage sorghum, we were nearly able to maintain the same yields 00:06:17 With half the Inputs with half the inputs. So I, for us, that's the big angle. And then, uh, something we started, uh, 00:06:24 the past couple years too, uh, on a dry land rotation. You know, sorghum isn't the most attractive dry land crop a lot of times in our area just 00:06:33 because, uh, I mean your insurance standpoint, stuff like that. But, uh, what, what's the feed situation look like? 00:06:40 Uh, uh, we started grazing grain sorghum instead of hay grazer during the season and have really liked it for the feed value. 00:06:47 Um, cattle have responded really, or done really well with it, so, okay. So It's got a real opportunity as a forage product. 00:06:53 But I have been told a lot of our sorghum used to go to, okay. We got the part that goes to bird seed, 00:06:58 which I'm guessing is small 5% or something like that. Less than single digit percent. Yeah. Small single digit percent. Uh, forage, we know it works, 00:07:05 especially in these more arid, semi arid type climates, again, predominantly western plains. Mm-hmm. And then we got the stuff that can go overseas 00:07:13 and a bunch of these to go to China and it was made and they used to make into booze Among other things. Yeah. 00:07:19 Are we gonna lose that? Uh, no, I don't think we're gonna lose that. Um, you know, this last September we hosted, uh, 00:07:25 Kansas hosted several trade teams following export sorghum. And we hosted at our farm, um, a trade team that was, uh, 00:07:32 young professionals and represented on my farm was 40% of the world's hog production was in my shop that night. Largely China. Largely It was all China. 00:07:42 And to the, the people that are watching this, I should probably tell 'em, or listening to this cutting the curb episode, more than 50% 00:07:48 of the world's hogs are in China. Absolutely. The biggest producer and consumer of pork in the world is the nation of China. 00:07:57 And just for a, a comparison, we've got about 6 million sows, uh, in the United States of America in our herd to creep producing our pigs. 00:08:04 They've got pushing 40 million sows in China. So just to give some context to that. And they're using grain sorghum as a feed source for hogs. 00:08:12 So, so the countries like China and, and another one, I'll talk about India in a minute, they have a, a little bit of an as adverse effect to, 00:08:19 uh, GMOs at times. Yep. And so sorghum fits right into that. And they've been the only premium buyer that there was. 00:08:27 Uh, other countries are bargain buyers. So while China was out of the market for much of the last year, right. 00:08:35 Other people come in and we're bargain buyers. So we had some sorghum moving, not large volumes, but as soon as the trade deal was done, they start buying. 00:08:43 Right now they've bought over 40 boats. Okay. Okay. So where do you see this going? Okay, first off, I wanna go to the forage stuff. 00:08:52 It's magical for you. Half the inputs, you don't use any water and you're feeding a bunch of cows right now. 00:08:58 We need all the cows we can produce. We're in a rare situation where beef is like the lone star right now, 00:09:04 the only place in agriculture is making a bunch of money. So I'm thinking, uh, why not ramp up beef 00:09:11 and using so sorghum for that? So do you see that happening? Oh, absolutely. In our area for sure. 00:09:17 I, I, you know, it won't be because sorghums a better way to go for, for us or, or locally. 00:09:24 It, it'll be because you're forced to. Yeah. Uh, there again, the, the water situations, uh, dire there. And, and if we want anything for the future, we better, 00:09:33 uh, change something here. So, so we're about six and a half million acres, I think is the number of sorghum throughout the 00:09:38 United States production wise. Six or so. Six to 7 million. Yep. Okay. It pales in comparison. We got 85, 83 00:09:44 to 85 million acres of soybeans. We pushed a hundred million acres of corn last year. Where do you think sorghum goes 00:09:50 And grows? Um, well right now sorghums struggling because of our basis, because we've had China outta the market. 00:09:56 And then last year, I can't speak to the nation's crop, but in 2024, the Kansas sorghum crop is about 196 million bushels. 00:10:02 2025. With the rains we got with less acres, were 252 million bushels. The 2024 crop didn't get exported out. 00:10:10 We got the 20, 25 crops sitting there. So we're struggling right now with basis, we got what we got a basis problem. 00:10:16 Where can it, where, where, I mean, we can grow. It is this problem that we have in agriculture brand. We've got the ability to produce. 00:10:22 We've got a product that works for a lot of reasons. And it can be, it can be feed, it can be bird seed, it can be processed into oil, it could be made into booze. 00:10:30 It's got a lot of applications. Mm-hmm. You can make the environmental case for it. We just need to get rid of the stuff. 00:10:35 So. Absolutely. So, you know, you've seen a recent, uh, trade deal with India. First thing that was listed was DDGs. 00:10:41 Second thing that was listed was red sorg. Okay. India is very protective of their own farmers. Each farmer has about a hector and a half. 00:10:48 Okay. So it's a lot of, and The person listening a hector is roughly 2.4 acres. Sure. So a hector and a half, 00:10:54 you're talking about less than four Acres and a lot of manual labor. Lots and lots of manual labor. 00:10:59 And so all those, all of those are votes. Yeah. And so that's very important to the, to the government. And so the number one, uh, ag industry over there is dairy. 00:11:07 Okay. So their dairy there, there was no dairy in that trade, in that trade deal. So dairy was important. They also wanted of the, 00:11:13 they grow corn and they grow white sorghum. Yep. That's why it was listed red sorghum. I see. So no white. So they can say, Hey, 00:11:18 we protected our farmers, which I want 'em to do. Every, every country should protect their own industry. They're protecting their farmers. Yeah. But four, 00:11:25 Four acres at a time. Four acres at a time. That's right. That's right. But they, they have a real problem 00:11:30 because they are, uh, they've had this, the e the, the ethanol mandate. Their ethanol mandate ethanol for fuel has 00:11:38 to come from domestic corn production only. Yeah. Okay. So then they're down. Now they've got, uh, of course the beef cattle are sacred. 00:11:44 The cattle are sacred in India. So they don't, they don't consume beef. You've got a heavily Muslim population in parts of it. 00:11:50 So they're not consuming much pork. Right. So it's poultry, poultry, poultry. Okay. Now the poultry producers are competing 00:11:57 with the ethanol industry for the domestic corn. And then their, their sorghum has a challenge called tannins us sorghum, zero tannins. And 00:12:06 That's a digestive. That's a, it's a, it's a, it's a component within the grain that makes it indigestible. Am I right about that? 00:12:12 It's a coating that makes it bitter. Yes. Bitter. It, it protects it from birds and moisture, but it also can make it bitter in a ration. 00:12:18 So most countries can't have a high percentage of sorghum I ration. Got it. But when you use us sorghum 00:12:25 with zero tannins, we can go a hundred percent. So we brought a trade team over, toured 'em through Kansas, throw 'em, showed 'em some sorghum, took him 00:12:32 to IGP at Kansas State. They showed 'em how to make a rationale of sorghum. They showed 'em all the numbers, all the data. 00:12:38 And then all of a sudden they're like, this will work for us. Even, even at that time, it would work for 'em 00:12:43 at the, at the tariff they had. So the India thing might be positive for sorghum. It's absolutely, The domestic consumption is most 00:12:49 certainly can be positive. So I guess the thing is, where do you see it going for you? Are you gonna be increasing your acres of sorghum? Yes. 00:12:56 Will you take it from just a forage crop and also become an actual harvested seed crop? Uh, on certain years? Yes. 00:13:01 We actually, uh, harvested quite a bit of grain sorghum last year just because we didn't have the feed demand. 00:13:06 So you let it go to grain. It's, it's kind of a dual purpose. You're The guy, you're the guy brand that's the chairman 00:13:12 of the Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission. What do we need? Do we need some legislation? What do we need? We just do, 00:13:18 we need protections like India does. What do we need to make this become a bigger crop? Because we know it can be and probably should be. So 00:13:24 What we're, what we're focusing on for the domestic demand is getting the nutritionist and the dairies in the feeding industry 00:13:31 converted over to sorghum. 'cause you have to pro you have to, you have to have a different flaker. 00:13:35 If you're gonna flake it, you gotta flake it different. You can't use it. 'cause you gotta, it's smaller. You gotta crack it smaller. But you can flake sorghum. 00:13:41 You can feed DD G's a sorghum. Yeah. Um, sorghum has a, a sorg ethanol purely from sorghum has a, a Lemme start that over. 00:13:50 Let's see, how'd that go? Okay. So tell me about ethanol derived from sorghum. Ethanol, purely pure ethanol. 00:13:58 Sorghum has a premium in some states like California of 12% because they recognize the water sustainability, 00:14:04 the carbon footprint, and the nutrient benefit to it. So there are advantages to it in many places. The demand just has to be there. 00:14:14 Are you optimistic there's gonna be a brighter future? I mean, they're one of the sponsors right here, the sorghum council. Sorghum is 00:14:20 NSP. And You got, uh, the corn, the soy, the wheat and the sorghum are spine are, are put on this commodity classic. 00:14:27 I'm pro sorghum. I just, uh, I I want it to catch on more. What's it gonna take? 00:14:32 I honestly don't know. I mean, for us, it, it's a good option. And I, I think for our area it is. 00:14:37 And I, I, there again, I think, uh, as, as water becomes more limiting or, or a limited commodity, uh, I, 00:14:45 I think guys will be forced in that direction. So you got Brent, the GMO aspect of it. You've got the environmental aspect of it. 00:14:51 This should check a lot of boxes for a lot of applications. It absolutely does. Uh, 00:14:56 I am very bullish sorghum going forward. I human consumption as well. Human consumption as well. 00:15:01 I personally have grown food grade sorghum that has ended up in toddler puffs. And one of the reasons the region I'm in, uh, 00:15:07 our sorghum Tesla and cadmium, and it tests low enough to meet export standards to the European Union. Got it. And so it used, it's used like a flour grain. Yep. 00:15:15 So Jason, what, in your opinion as a sorghum producer, is it gonna take to make grain sorghum catch on more, to make it more predominant on the, on the livestock front? 00:15:23 'cause that's where a lot of grain goes, obviously. Right? It goes through animals and we eat 00:15:27 'em. Yeah. So on the, the livestock front, I mean, for us, it, it, it's about feed value. 00:15:32 I mean, that's what pays the bills in the end. So, and I, I mean, through side business and consulting there, we work with a lot of dairies as well. 00:15:38 Uh, one thing I see with, with, uh, forage sorghum or even grain sorghum in general, it's not very good about converting nitrate into protein. 00:15:46 Uh, I think we've made some strides over the past few years working on that with, uh, you know, some of the sap testing 00:15:52 and ole testing we've been doing. But, uh, I, I think the agronomy behind sorghum, uh, not that it's been ignored, but you know, uh, there, 00:16:02 there's other priorities there. So I I, we want to give it that priority and really, really figure out what drives that quality. 00:16:09 Well, this goes back to the nutrient density issue, and obviously we're trying to make better soybeans, and then there's high oleic and then there's the food grade. 00:16:15 Now you talking about, is the Kansas State University or Texas a and m, are they work, I mean, these circumstance, do they have research going on to make a better sorghum 00:16:25 for better feed value to make better pork beef chicken? Absolutely. The, the Kansas sorghum and, and Nashville sorghum teamed up to make the center 00:16:33 for sorghum improvement. And it's how it's, it's currently housed at Kansas State University. 00:16:38 And that's what we kind of funnel all of our research through. So we make sure we're not double doing anything anywhere, 00:16:43 and we make sure that everything we do gets followed through on it done. Well, and, and if I could tag onto what he said 00:16:49 and what you're saying with the water, the important thing is we can rail starch in starch can be loaded on a truck, loaded on rail 00:16:56 and brought in, you cannot rail fiber in. It's not cost effective to rail the fiber in. So forage sorghum is going to be a huge piece going forward 00:17:05 of feeding our nation, conserving our water and our resources. I'm excited about sorghum. 00:17:12 I hope you're excited about sorghum. We said there's about six, six and a half million acres of it currently. 00:17:15 Maybe, you know, we're watching this video 2, 3, 4 years from now. And like, man, we're up to 12 million 00:17:20 and we have a use for it. It's got a lot of big benefits. You're talking about water conservation, 00:17:25 you're talking about the la non GMO, which, uh, matters to a lot of customers. You're talking about a great feed source for livestock. 00:17:31 And if we can do some of those things, improving it for that and, uh, we got the, the bird seed 00:17:35 as a kicker, right? That's Right. All right. He's brat. Uh, he's Brat Peterson. He's with the Kansas Grain 00:17:41 Sorghum Commission as the chairman. He is also a fifth generation Kansas farmer. Joined by Jason Birkenfeld, Texas Panhandle Farmer 00:17:47 and sorghum producer for Forage. I'm Dam Mason. We're coming at you from the floor here of Commodity Classic in the Extreme AG booth. 00:17:54 That's right. This is a fun little episode. We're gonna be doing a lot of cool stuff here this week at Commodity Classic. 00:17:59 If you enjoyed this episode, go and check out all the other stuff we've done at Extreme Ag Farm, hundreds and hundreds of videos 00:18:04 that guys have shot out in the field, and also hundreds of episodes of cutting the curve. All there free for you to help you farm. 00:18:10 Better tonight Time. Thanks for tuning in. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm 00:18:18 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 00:18:21.405 --> 00:18:22.525