2024/25 U.S. Sorghum Crop Graded At No. 1 Certification For Sixth Year In A Row

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Grains Council (USGC) released its 2024/25 Sorghum Quality Report today and for the sixth year in a row, U.S. sorghum was, on average, graded above the necessary requirements for U.S. No. 1 certification.

“The Council’s mission is to develop markets, enable trade and improve lives, and what better way to support that mission than to offer transparent reports on grain quality as a service to our partners worldwide to empower them to make the best purchasing decisions,” said Verity Ulibarri, USGC chairwoman. “We hope it provides valuable information about the quality of U.S. sorghum to the U.S. industry’s valued overseas customers and end-users who count on our products every day.”

The report, funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service Agricultural Trade Promotion (USDA-FAS) program and the United Sorghum Checkoff Program (USCP), provides international customers and other interested parties accurate, unbiased information about the 2024/25 U.S. sorghum crop.

Data was drawn from 95 samples collected from 15 participating elevators in the central and southern regions of the U.S., an area representing nearly 100 percent of all U.S. sorghum exports.

The samples were collected by the Amarillo Grain Exchange and analyzed at the Grain Quality Testing Lab at Kansas State University’s Grain Science Department, where scientists calculated averages and standard deviations for each quality factor tested and reported results for the U.S. aggregate.

Total sorghum damage came in at 0.3 percent in the aggregate and no heat damage was observed in the samples. Kernel diameter, an indicator of maturity and resiliency, was similar to last year and the five-year average of previous studies.

Additionally, tannins were absent from the sorghum samples for the sixth year in a row and starch and oil content both increased from last year’s crop.