The panicles of sorghum come in a wide variety of growth forms, such as wide opened or compact, recurved and upright, in red, yellow, white, black and brown and with different grain sizes.

Sorghum is a staple food in parts of Africa (especially West and East Africa) and India. It originally comes from West Africa and arrived in the USA via enslaved Africans, where it is still cultivated today, mostly for the production of sugar, syrup and molasses (sweet sorghum). Beers (Tella, Dolo, Merisa, Pombe) and other alcoholic beverages such as Kaoliang or Gaoliang, which originated in China and Taiwan, can be made from sorghum varieties containing sugar. Grain sorghum can be used to make a flour, which is processed into flat bread in India (Bhākrī, Jōļada rotti), in Africa rather into millet porridge. The round grains, up to about 5 mm in size, can also be popped.

Fibrous sorghum (“broom corn“) is used to make brooms (‘turkey tail’ style) and paper.

• Edible Grains (seeds)
• Type of fruit Caryopsis
• Culinary Group Cereals
• Taste neutral nutty
• Trivial Names Sorghum, Sorghumhirse, Sorgho, Dari, Durrakorn, Besenkorn, Guineakorn, Shallu, Milo, Mohrenhirse, Körnerhirse, Jowar, Jowari, Jwaarie, Jola, Jondhalaa, Droô, Great millet, Durra, Sorgo commun, Sorgho
• Size (panicle) 35 cm
• Taxonomy Poaceae (Grass family) Sorghum bicolor
• Origin Sahel Zone (Map)
• Locality Archäologie und Archäobotanik Afrikas, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt 2019