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Where to Grow Sorghum for Malt

Grow malting sorghum where the grain finishes dry. Rain and humidity from flowering to harvest bring the grain mold that costs germination, and most US sorghum already grows in the Plains states. Dry still doesn't mean safe: a hot, drought-stressed finish favors aflatoxin, so every lot gets tested whatever its region.

Our position​

We'd source malting sorghum from the western Plains: eastern Colorado, western Kansas, the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, western Nebraska and central South Dakota, harvested at black layer and dried promptly. Then we'd test every lot anyway.

The region sets the odds. The grower's harvest and drying decide whether you keep them. Bard's learned the second half the hard way: in May 2019 a batch of malt went moldy in the malthouse, and Craig's note to the team put it plainly: "This is usually caused by a farmer not taking care of the grain as agreed."1 Bard's didn't pay for the batch, and opened a second grain source to run against the first (the paper trail).

Where US sorghum grows​

Six states grow almost all of it: Kansas, Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Nebraska and South Dakota held about 96% of the acres harvested for grain in the 2022 Census of Agriculture2. For 2025, USDA's grain-sorghum estimates cover those six, and they add up to the national total of 437 million bushels3. Kansas alone grew more than half.

State2025 productionShare of US2025 yieldYield range, 2020–2025Main harvest window
Kansas252.0 million bu57.7%90 bu/acre39–90Sep 25 – Nov 10
Texas100.7 million bu23.1%5349–63Jul 8 – Nov 16
Colorado26.0 million bu6.0%5220–52Oct 11 – Nov 18
Oklahoma23.5 million bu5.4%5824–58Sep 26 – Nov 21
Nebraska17.8 million bu4.1%8755–91Oct 8 – Nov 8
South Dakota16.8 million bu3.8%8064–90Oct 1 – Nov 6
United States436.8 million bu72.6

Production, yields and ranges are USDA's state estimates34; the shares are ours, from the same table. Harvest windows are USDA's "most active" dates, published in 20105. Texas starts earliest because its crop matures from the south of the state in early summer to the Panhandle by late summer and fall6.

Two things in the table matter to a malt buyer:

  • The swing year to year is large. 2022 was the drought year: the US averaged 41.1 bushels an acre and produced 188 million bushels, and Kansas fell to 39 bushels an acre from 85 two years before4. A contract written in a good year has to survive a year like that.
  • Colorado swings hardest. It had the lowest yield of the six every year from 2020 to 2025, down to 20 bushels an acre in 2020 and 2022, and USDA still expected record production there in 2025 at 5234.

What the weather does to grain you mean to sprout​

A malt buyer is buying live seed, and the weather between flowering and the bin decides how much of it is still alive. Each of these conditions shows up in the lot.

ConditionStageWhat it does to malting grain
Rain and humidityFlowering through grain fillGrain mold. "Humid and warm conditions during flowering and grain development stages favor infection and mold development while dry conditions prevent it." Mold spores peak at 25–28 °C (77–82 °F) and 100% humidity7
Wet weatherAfter black layer, before harvestWeathering: grain discolored and damaged by fungi after it's mature7
Heat and droughtGrain fillAflatoxin risk. Oklahoma State's extension pathologist lists aflatoxins and fumonisins as "the top concerns for corn and sorghum in warm climates like the southern United States"8
Rain with a cool spellFloweringErgot, worst in male-sterile forage and hybrid seed fields (see below)69
Early freeze or severe droughtSoft dough"Shriveled, light grain"10
Humid harvest airField and bin dryingGrain that won't dry. Outdoor humidity "affects drying potential more in eastern Kansas than western Kansas"11

Mold damage costs germination. ICRISAT's grain-mold bulletin ties it to losses in "seed mass, grain density, seed germination, storage quality"7, and a malthouse can't add germination back (What Makes Good Malting Sorghum).

How dry the harvest runs, region by region​

NOAA's station records put numbers on "finishes dry." September and October are when most Plains sorghum finishes filling and comes out of the field5:

StationSep–Oct normal rain (in)Autumns over 5 in, 2000–2025Median first freeze
Lamar, CO1.850 of 26Oct 8
Akron, CO2.231 of 26Oct 5
Garden City, KS2.793 of 26Oct 15
Goodland, KS2.815 of 26Oct 10
Guymon, OK3.115 of 26Oct 21
North Platte, NE3.264 of 26Sep 29
Dodge City, KS3.335 of 26Oct 18
Pierre, SD3.435 of 26Oct 4
Amarillo, TX3.445 of 26Oct 23
Lubbock, TX4.088 of 26Oct 28
Huron, SD4.3810 of 26Oct 2
Salina, KS4.818 of 26Oct 25
Lincoln, NE5.0412 of 26Oct 11
Topeka, KS6.3715 of 26Oct 19
Oklahoma City, OK7.0417 of 26Nov 4

Normals are 1991–2020; the autumn counts, the 5-inch line and the freeze medians are ours, from the same records12. Dry country still gets wet autumns: Goodland took 7.73 inches in 2013 and Dodge City 8.32 in 2018. The dry window is the finish, too: at every western station but Lubbock, August, when the crop flowers, is wetter than September or October, and at Lubbock September is the wettest month. The north's advantage comes with an earlier freeze, so a late-planted field there has less time to reach black layer. South Texas runs on a different calendar, with its crop maturing in late spring and early summer6.

Place changes the grain; the season changes the malt more. South Africa's national cultivar trials malted the commercial malting cultivars from three localities in each of five seasons: every malting parameter moved with season, and "seasonal effects on diastatic power were greater than locality and cultivar effects"13. Earlier South African work found diastatic activity "varies with season and locality"14. In US trials, growing site changed kernel size, hardness and amylose across three Kansas locations15, and starch and protein across two Kansas sites and one in Texas16. The multi-location malting trials are South African; in the US, what's been measured across locations is the grain and its germination, the trait malting depends on. Across four Texas environments, environment explained 39.9% of the variation in initial germination against 15.8% for hybrid, and 81.1% of the germination lost to weathering against 5.0%, with more weathering in the wetter environments17. Our own record shows the season too: W1000 from the same farm malted at 58.9% extract from the 2002 crop and 52.2% from the 2003 crop (Sorghum Malt Screenings 2002–2004). Choose the region for the finish, and treat each crop year's grain as a new lot.

Dry helps. Dry isn't the same as safe.​

The case for dry country is real. The grain-mold fungi, including the Fusarium species that make fumonisin, need wet panicles: infection rose with wetness up to 72 hours in the study ICRISAT cites, and crops that mature "after the rains often escape mold infection"7. The western Plains also dry grain more easily at harvest11. The US Grains Council's 2016 survey of the crop found no detectable DON in all 75 samples and no detectable aflatoxin in 72, and credited "favorable weather conditions in 2016"18.

Three things keep dry from meaning safe:

  1. Aflatoxin likes heat and stress. The mold that makes it thrives on the conditions dry country produces in a bad year. The temperature thresholds Oklahoma State gives are stated for corn: above 86 °F (30 °C) with dry conditions during grain fill, and nights above 70 °F (21 °C)8. Sorghum is named as a concern in the same breath.
  2. A good year can still fail a malting spec. Three of the 75 samples in that favorable 2016 survey carried aflatoxin above 5 ppb18. That's under the federal 20 ppb action level and above the 5 ppb ceiling in Bard's grain specification (Sourcing Sorghum Farmer-Direct).
  3. Dry regions have wet weeks. Ergot reached the US in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in 1997 and followed the maturing crop north to the Texas Panhandle by mid-August6. In the southern Panhandle, the ergot years were the years when rain in early August pulled the maximum temperature down, a pattern the weather record shows recurring on cycles of 2–4 and 7–10 years or longer9.

Federal export inspections show the aflatoxin side at scale. From 2010 to 2025, sorghum tested at Texas Gulf ports averaged 2.1–2.8 ppb aflatoxin, against 1.0–1.8 ppb at Pacific ports, and Texas ran higher in each of the six years both had at least 15 tests. The gap is small: no port cargo passed 20 ppb, and the one rejection in 16 years was an interior Texas lot at 76 ppb in 202319. Ports show where grain shipped from, not which farm grew it.

Crop-insurance records go down to the farm county, and they show how rarely toxins cost a sorghum grower a claim. From 2001 to 2025, USDA crop insurance paid $4.35 billion on grain sorghum, and $209,874 of it, about 0.005%, was for mycotoxins; corn, in the same program, lost about 0.6% of its claims to mycotoxins. Texas carried about two-thirds of sorghum's mycotoxin dollars since 1996, most of that in the Coastal Bend and Rio Grande Valley counties, plus one Panhandle county in 201720. The record counts insured, claimed losses only.

Irrigated or dryland​

Most sorghum is dryland. In the 2022 Census of Agriculture, about 7% of the acres harvested for grain were irrigated2. That year was the drought, and it shows what irrigation bought:

2022 yield, bu/acreEntire crop irrigatedNo crop irrigated
United States76.543.6
Kansas84.441.0
Texas78.455.4
Colorado48.327.8

For a maltster, irrigation's value is a crop that still fills in a drought year: in 2022 it roughly doubled the Kansas yield. In one Kansas and Texas study, irrigation didn't change grain starch or protein16. Its cost is water drawn from an aquifer that's being drawn down (Sorghum and Water). In a normal year dryland grain from the western Plains is the base of the US crop, and a malting program can run on it. In a drought year, ask whether any of the lot is irrigated, and check test weight and germination before you commit.

Harvest and drying keep what the region gave you​

  • Harvest at black layer. Harvesting at physiological maturity "helps prevent saprophytic growth of mold fungi"7. The kernel is about 30–35% moisture at black layer and can be combined below 30%1011.
  • Keep glyphosate off malting grain. K-State notes Roundup is labeled as a harvest aid for sorghum grown for feed and is "not recommended for sorghum grown for seed because germination may be reduced"11. Grain for malt is seed.
  • Dry it fast. Drying right after harvest "to about 10% moisture level prevents mold development in storage"7; sorghum must be below 14% to store safely in bins without drying equipment10, and Bard's specification set 14% as the ceiling. Natural-air drying above 60 °F (16 °C) raises the chance of mold, and October air in Kansas often can't take grain much below 16%11.
  • Check the germ at harvest. A tetrazolium (TZ) stain shows whether the germ is alive. In August 2019, on a Texas harvest that rain had just delayed, Bard's team was told it could be run within hours of harvest, before the grain is set aside.1

White grain needs the dry finish most​

The grain maltsters work with resists mold less than pigmented grain. The strongest mold resistance comes from a pigmented testa, the layer that carries condensed tannins, and white-grain sorghums are "particularly more vulnerable"7. Everything this site teaches about malting assumes non-tannin grain (Tannin and Non-Tannin Sorghum), and the US crop the Grains Council samples is non-tannin: all 102 samples in 2025/26 came in below 4.0 mg CE/g, as has every sample since 2019/2021. The Sorghum Checkoff says the food-grade hybrids, bred for white grain and tan glumes, "tend to be more susceptible to grain mold"22. So the lighter the grain, the more of its protection has to come from the region and the harvest.

USDA's grain grades define a White sorghum class, at least 98% white-pericarp kernels with no pigmented testa23, but little trade is graded to it: from 2019 to 2025, inspected exports of White sorghum ran 236 to 10,531 metric tons a year, against 1.7 to 6.5 million tons of ordinary sorghum19. USDA's county-level records of sorghum type, the Farm Service Agency's acreage files and the crop-insurance records, list grain sorghum by use and seed type, without a grain-color category2420, so the buyers' reports are the map. They put white grain in the same belt as the rest of the crop: a Brenham, Kansas elevator took in more than 100,000 bushels of food-grade white sorghum in a year, from growers ranging "from farmers in Nebraska to west Texas"25, and a Scott City, Kansas miller says "All Nu Life Market sorghum is grown in the high plains of Kansas"26, "most of it coming from north central Kansas down to southwestern Kansas"27.

Organic grain is concentrated too. In USDA's 2021 organic survey, 74 farms harvested 8,125 certified-organic acres of grain sorghum; Texas had 4,490 of them, Kansas 1,541 and South Dakota 95128.

The decision rule​

  1. Choose a region where harvest usually falls in dry weather. On the NOAA record that's eastern Colorado, western Kansas, the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, western Nebraska and central South Dakota.
  2. In a hot, dry year, test for aflatoxin whatever the region. Dry weather lowers the grain-mold and fumonisin risk and raises the conditions aflatoxin likes.
  3. In a drought year, prefer irrigated grain or check fill first. The 2022 yields above are the gap you're buying across.
  4. Choose the grower as carefully as the county. Black-layer harvest, no glyphosate harvest aid, fast drying to 14% or below, and a TZ or germination check are what keep the region's advantage in the lot.
  5. For white or tan grain, weight the dry finish heavily. It's the class that needs it most.
  6. Test every lot against the specification. Germination, DON, aflatoxin and fumonisin, whatever the region promised (Grain Storage, Germination, and Mycotoxin Controls).

Run the rule on a region​

The rule above is general. This applies it region by region: pick a growing area and it returns the harvest window, how dry that harvest usually runs, the irrigated and dryland yields behind it, and what the region still leaves you to test for. It is the NOAA and USDA record on the map, not a recommendation of any grower.

If the explorer does not load, open it directly at the sorghum growing-region explorer.

Ask the grower before harvest​

  • Which county, and is the field irrigated or dryland?
  • When was it planted, and when do you expect black layer?
  • What harvest aid, if any, will you use?
  • How will you dry it, to what moisture, and how fast?
  • Where will it be stored, and for how long before it ships?
  • Will you send a sample for a germination or TZ check within days of harvest?

Then hold the lot to a written specification (Sourcing Sorghum Farmer-Direct) and pick the hybrid with North American Sorghum Cultivars.

References​

  1. Bard's correspondence: the May 2019 malthouse mold batch and the grain specification sent with it, and the August 2019 harvest update on the TZ test. ↩ ↩2

  2. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2022 Census of Agriculture, Table 34, "Specified Crops Harvested – Yield per Acre Irrigated and Nonirrigated: 2022", sorghum for grain: United States, Kansas, Texas, Colorado. The irrigated share is ours: acres on farms irrigating all or part of the crop (irrigated acres only) over all acres harvested. ↩ ↩2

  3. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, Crop Production 2025 Summary (January 2026), "Sorghum Area Planted for All Purposes and Harvested for Grain, Yield, and Production – States and United States: 2023-2025": state planted and harvested acres, yield and production for 2023–2025, and the national highlights including the expected Colorado record. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, Crop Production 2022 Summary (January 2023), the same table for 2020–2022, including the 2022 drought year. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, Field Crops Usual Planting and Harvesting Dates, Agricultural Handbook 628 (October 2010), "Sorghum for Grain Usual Planting and Harvesting Dates – States": most-active harvest dates by state. ↩ ↩2

  6. Isakeit, T., Odvody, G.N. & Shelby, R.A. (1998). First Report of Sorghum Ergot Caused by Claviceps africana in the United States. Plant Disease 82(5):592. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  7. Thakur, R.P., Reddy, B.V.S., Indira, S., Rao, V.P., Navi, S.S., Yang, X.B. & Ramesh, S. (2006). Sorghum Grain Mold. Information Bulletin No. 72, ICRISAT: climate drivers of grain mold, weathering, losses including germination, timely harvest and drying, and the role of pigmented testa and pericarp color. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  8. Vilhauer, L. (19 September 2025). Mycotoxins could be present in corn and sorghum. High Plains Journal, quoting Maira Duffeck, Extension row crop pathologist, Oklahoma State University. ↩ ↩2

  9. Workneh, F. & Rush, C.M. (2002). Evaluation of relationships between weather patterns and prevalence of sorghum ergot in the Texas panhandle. Phytopathology 92(6):659–666. ↩ ↩2

  10. Gerik, T., Bean, B. & Vanderlip, R. (2003). Sorghum Growth and Development. Texas Cooperative Extension B-6137: black-layer moisture, harvest and safe-storage moisture, and freeze or drought at soft dough. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  11. Kansas State University Research and Extension, Grain Sorghum Production Handbook, C-687: harvest moisture, desiccants and the glyphosate caution for seed, and low-temperature drying and humidity in eastern and western Kansas. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  12. NOAA Regional Climate Centers, Applied Climate Information System (ACIS): station monthly precipitation 2000–2025, 1991–2020 monthly normals, and daily minimum temperatures 1991–2020, retrieved 29 September 2026. Autumns over 5 inches count September plus October totals in years with complete records; the first freeze is the first minimum of 32 °F (0 °C) or lower on or after July 1, in years missing no more than 10 days. Both are our calculations. ↩

  13. van Loggerenberg, M. & Pretorius, A.J. (2004). Sorghum malting quality as affected by availability of suitable cultivars. South African Journal of Plant and Soil 21(3):192–195. ↩

  14. Novellie, L. (1982). Fermented beverages. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Sorghum Grain Quality, 28–31 October 1981. ICRISAT, Patancheru, India. ↩

  15. Kaufman, R.C., Wilson, J.D., Bean, S.R., Galant, A.L., Perumal, R., Tesso, T., Herald, T.J. & Shi, Y.C. (2018). Influence of Genotype × Location Interaction on Grain Sorghum Grain Chemistry and Digestibility. Agronomy Journal 110(5):1681–1688. ↩

  16. Wu, X., Zhao, R., Liu, L., Bean, S., Seib, P.A., McLaren, J., Madl, R., Tuinstra, M., Lenz, M. & Wang, D. (2008). Effects of Growing Location and Irrigation on Attributes and Ethanol Yields of Selected Grain Sorghums. Cereal Chemistry 85(4):495–501. ↩ ↩2

  17. Kent, M.A., Prom, L.K. & Rooney, W.L. (2022). Comparing the effects of grain weathering and presence of fungal communities on waxy and non-waxy sorghum hybrids grown across Texas. Crop Science 62(5):1834–1843. ↩

  18. U.S. Grains Council, Sorghum Harvest Quality Report (2016 crop), mycotoxin results: aflatoxin and DON across 75 samples, and the weather attribution. ↩ ↩2

  19. USDA Federal Grain Inspection Service, export grain inspection data, calendar years 2010–2025: sorghum certificates by class, port region and aflatoxin result. Means, tonnages and year-by-year comparisons are our calculations from the certificate records. ↩ ↩2

  20. USDA Risk Management Agency, Summary of Business and Cause of Loss data files: grain sorghum (commodity 0051) and corn (0041) indemnities by state, county and cause, 1996–2025, including cause 82, "Mycotoxin (Aflatoxin)" and "Mycotoxin"; grain sorghum insurance types for 2025. Totals and shares are our calculations from the files. ↩ ↩2

  21. U.S. Grains Council, 2025/2026 Sorghum Quality Report, "Tannins": all 102 samples below 4.0 mg CE/g. ↩

  22. Sorghum Checkoff (29 December 2017). Sorghum Grain Color. ↩

  23. 7 CFR 810.1402(c), United States Standards for Sorghum: the four classes, Sorghum, Tannin sorghum, White sorghum and Mixed sorghum. ↩

  24. USDA Farm Service Agency, Crop Acreage Data, 2025 acres by county, crop, crop type and intended use. ↩

  25. Associated Press (26 December 2014). Demand increasing for food-grade sorghum. Lawrence Journal-World. ↩

  26. Nu Life Market, About, the company's own account of where its sorghum is grown. ↩

  27. Kansas Living (5 August 2025). Milo makes an impact on every step of Kansas' food supply chain. ↩

  28. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2021 Certified Organic Survey (December 2022), "Certified Organic Field Crops and Hay Harvested and Value of Sales: 2021", sorghum for grain or seed, including milo. ↩