Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench, a coarse grain, also known as shu, is one of the ancient cereal crops. It is an annual herb of the family Poaceae. The stalks are thick and erect, with supporting roots on the basal nodes. The leaf sheath is glabrous or slightly powdery; the leaf tongue is dural, the apex is rounded, and the edges are cilia. The conical inflorescence is loose, the spindle is exposed, the total stem is erect or slightly curved; 3 stamens, the anthers are about 3 mm long; the ovary is inverted and ovate; the peduncle is separated, and the stigma broom is shaped. The fruit is flattened on both sides, reddish to reddish brown, 2.5–3 mm wide when ripe, and slightly exposed at the apex. The stalk of the stalk spikelet is about 2.5 mm long, the spikelet is linear to lanceolate, and the flowering period is from June to September. Sorghum rice taste sweet, warm, astringent, and gastric accumulation, warm astringent intestine, the main treatment of spleen deficiency and wet sleepiness, indigestion and other symptoms. In many places, there is no way to grow rice and wheat, so they mainly grow sorghum. There are many types of sorghum, according to the appearance and color of sorghum ears, it can be divided into white sorghum, red sorghum, yellow sorghum and so on. Red is often used to make wine, white is eaten, it is also a raw material for vinegar and starch extraction. Although sorghum does not taste very good, it has many benefits for the body. Sorghum protein has a low content of lysine, which is a semi-complete protein, and although the niacin content of sorghum is not as much as that of corn, it can be well absorbed by the human body. Each 100g of sorghum contains 10.4g of protein, 3.1g of fat, 74.7g of carbohydrates, 1.6mg of niacin, and 4.3g of dietary fiber.
There is almost no doubt that Africa is one of the origins of sorghum, africa is the place where sorghum species are most varied, and in 1882 Condolle first proposed that sorghum originated in Africa. Of the 17 wild species of sorghum collected by Snowton (1935), 16 were from Africa. Of the 31 cultivars he identified, Africa accounted for 28; of the 158 varieties, only 4 were outside Africa. In addition, the earliest edible sorghum was found in a cave in Mozambique, Africa, where 105,000-year-old stone tools were stuck with local sorghum granules.
China is one of the first countries to cultivate sorghum, with a long history of at least 5,000 years. There are many kinds of aliases for sorghum recorded in ancient books in China. Such as Shu Forest, Shu Huang, Lu Xiang, Hagi Liang, Wu He and so on. The agronomic traits of Chinese sorghum are different from those of African origin, so the origin of Chinese sorghum has been debated. To sum up, there are two main views: First, the origin of Africa, through India to China. The second is China's indigenous origins. However, recent molecular studies have shown that the evidence of China's indigenous origin is insufficient, Li equal to 2009 using chloroplast genome SSR marker analysis of 185 Chinese sorghum endemic varieties 70 from Africa East Asia and North America represent different types of foreign sorghum germplasm resources genetic diversity, cluster analysis shows that Chinese sorghum and foreign sorghum can not be clearly distinguished In 2010, Zhang et al. used nuclear genomic SSR markers to analyze the same material research results in line with previous results in support of the Chinese sorghum theory of African origin.
Sorghum likes temperature and light, and has certain high temperature resistance characteristics. It is found in tropical, subtropical and temperate regions of the world. It is cultivated in all provinces and regions of northern and southern China. Sorghum rice is eaten in China, North Korea, the former Soviet Union, India and Africa.