Highland forage and dual-purpose sorghum for livestock feed and human food

Sorghum is a coarse perennial grass, but it is usually treated as an annual, adapting widely to geography and climate. It requires relatively little water and fertilizer and its yield potential in the semi-arid tropics is high. KARI has developed a number of sorghum varieties. Dual-purpose sorghum is used both as human food and livestock feed, forage sorghum for livestock feed only. To be considered a forage sorghum, about 20% of the total dry matter must come from the grain and about 80% from stover; in dual-purpose sorghum about 40% of the total dry matter is from grain and about 60% from stover. A good forage sorghum variety is E6518. It takes 230 days to mature and can grow to 3 m at optimal harvesting stage. A good dual-purpose variety is E1291. It matures in 160 days and can grow to 170–200 cm. Both E1291 and E6518 do well in cold dry highlands, at an altitude of 1500–2000 metres and with 650 mm annual rainfall. Both varieties are brown seeded with white midribs. The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute in Lanet has also developed other sorghum varieties, all brown seeded. Ikinyaruka, BJ28 and BM30 are dual purpose. BM30, the only one of these varieties with brown midribs, is 10% more digestible than the other varieties, which are white ribbed. Unlike other fodder, such as Napier grass, sorghum is easy to ensile because it is not necessary to add sugar to facilitate fermentation

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