The quality and profit advantages of sorghums with the Brown Mid Rib (BMR) gene are now well established. The reduced lignin content of BMR forages increases the digestibility, resulting in greater in take and performance. BMR forages can equal the feed value of corn silage at significantly lower water and input requirements as well as much lower seed costs.
Phillips BMR hybrids offer the latest in BMR genetics to provide the best package of forage quality and improved standability not available in all hybrids sold commercially. In addition to standard BMR forage sorghum, Phillips Seed has brachytic dwarf, photoperiod sensitive, and male sterile forage sorghums.
Brachytic dwarf sorghums, such as BMR 60D and Sweet Graz 15 BMRD,offer top quality forage with superior standability. Brachytic dwarf types stand because they have dramatically shortened internodes, resulting in comparable yields due to almost double the number of leaves per foot of plant and increased number of tillers. The normal sized leaves and very short spaces between the leaves deliver a much higher leaf to stalk ratio for improved feed quality and palatability.
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Photoperiod sensitive (PPS) hybrids initiate heading in response to day length, as opposed to accumulated heat units. Phillips Seed's BMR PPS hybrid sorghum-sudan cross, Sweet Graz 15 BMRPPS, is a long day plant.
It will not initiate heading until the day length is less than 12.5 hours, providing growers a wider window of opportunity to harvest quality, non-mature forage.
Male sterile hybrids, such as Phillips BMR 64 hybrid forage sorghum, do not produce pollen for self-fertilization. If there is no nearby pollen source to cross pollinate, then male sterile hybrids will produce no grain. All the sugars and proteins stay in the leaves and stalks instead of moving into the grain – thereby maintaining the digestibility and palatability of the whole plant. Animal performance may be enhanced from the greater actual physical digesti- bility of the leaves and stalks versus the grain, which is often small enough to escape significant mechanical damage to its hard, somewhat impervious seed coat and can move through the digestive tract of high performing animals too quickly to be adequately digested.
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