Last edited on November 02, 2026. View history
Mennonite Sorghum
Mennonite Sorghum
A variety of sorghum
A sorghum from the Mennonite community in the USA, grown for syrup and also as a grain. Stalks can be chewed fresh, and two square metres of raised bed made about a litre of thick syrup. The seed tastes like lentils and pops as a breakfast cereal. Plants top 2 m and the seed heads need covering against birds. Transplant from trays at 5 to 10 cm high, 40 cm apart on the diagonal, once soil is 15 °C.
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Mennonite sorghum facts
Lifespan
Crop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For Mennonite sorghum, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 8°C and a shortest growing cycle of 90 days at its best temperature, about 1845 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your Mennonite sorghum will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
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Time to harvest
If sown now, expect a first harvest in about 90 to 300 days.
From the growing cycle in the FAO EcoCrop database, which is the same wherever it is grown.
Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench
| Family / Taxonomy | Liliopsida Commelinidae Cyperales Gramineae |
|---|---|
| Life form | grass |
| Life span | annual |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | medium (50-150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | heavy, medium |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | short day (<12 hours) |
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