With Chinese demand soaring, farmers in Alabama turned this year for the first time to the low-cost, drought-tolerant grain sorghum.

Limestone County, Ala., farmer Stuart Sanderson said the combination of a wet planting season and high prices convinced him to plant his first-ever 800 acres of sorghum.

“It fit into our operation really well,” Sanderson said. “We were only going to plant 100 acres, but as futures kept going up, so did our acreage. As long as we can find a suitable market, we plan to keep this crop in our rotation for next year.”

Despite weed resistance, low cost and high demand, farmers should be wary of pests that could railroad profits, said Kathy Flanders of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System.

“Sugarcane aphids seem to thrive off sorghum,” said Flanders, ACES entomologist and plant physiologist. “Most farmers either haven’t grown sorghum or haven’t grown it in a while. They should re-familiarize themselves with the insect and disease situations that come about.”

Flanders said every field is different and encouraged farmers to stay ahead of the curve by scouting and spraying when necessary.

Elmore County farmer Richard Edgar said he gave sorghum a chance this year and hopes to see a profit from his crop.

“The bronze heads are about as large as two hands cupped together—so it looks pretty good,” he said of his sorghum crop. “A lot of my satisfaction is going to depend on how it weighs up. You never know until you put it in a trailer and run it across a scale.”

While aphids have hit farms across the Southeast, Sanderson said aphid damage was minimal and he’s happy with the crop so far.

“As farmers and agribusinessmen, we try to find niches where we can squeeze out a few extra pennies or nickels,” he said. “We just happened to find a situation where we can squeeze out 50 cents (more per dollar when planting sorghum instead of corn), and this was one of the years when it really fit into our operation.”