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Kansas Sorghum Update: Historic Prices, Low Input Costs, and Dry Soils Mean Brisk Sorghum Seed Bookings

With harvest weather conditions staying satisfactory throughout the fall, Kansas farmers have harvested their grain sorghum for the 2020 growing season and likely sold their crop at a good price with sorghum basis historically high.

In fact, by the end of November and just three months into the 2020 and 2021 marketing year, sorghum’s previously set export records have been typically exceeded on a weekly basis. To date, U.S. sorghum exports for this marketing year have reached a monumental 178.8 million bushels, or 68 percent of USDA’s export projection. Grain is selling at an average of $4.45 per bushels, including here in Kansas, but our sorghum-growing peers on the East Coast have been selling for as high as $7 or $8 per bushel out there. Basis has remained steady across the Sorghum Belt and along the Gulf Coast.

So, as a new year dawns and winter ebbs on, growers are now considering their cropping options for 2021 and with prospects for a good sorghum price, along with the potential for a large portion of the Sorghum Belt planting into a less than a full soil profile of water, sorghum seed will likely be in high demand.

Anecdotes from seed companies show seed bookings have been brisk and significantly ahead of 2020 in some regions of the country. Although overall seed supply should satisfy the market, the demand certainly could exceed some supplies—particularly as you seek out the most popular sorghum hybrids. Those interested in growing sorghum should begin booking seed now