New DEKALB sorghum products can help Kansas and Missouri growers

The DEKALB brand is introducing new grain sorghum products this season designed to add value and help reduce risk for farmers in Kansas, Missouri and southern Illinois.

Bryan Thomas, DEKALB specialty crops portfolio manager, said the launch of DKS49-76 and DKS43-76 brands expands the DEKALB portfolio of double-stacked trait protection against sugarcane aphids and sorghum downy mildew.

Thomas said the new products will be available in limited supply this season, with an expanded rollout planned for 2026. In addition to SCA and SDM tolerance, both offer great agronomic benefits to promote high-yield potential.

• DKS49-76, a 70-day-to-flower product with excellent yield potential, offers farmers in eastern Kansas, Missouri and southern Illinois a great defense against stalk lodging and very good resistance to root lodging. In Bayer trials, it was shown to outyield current DEKALB medium-full products. “Having an earlier product that has the potential to yield with or outyield a later maturity helps to provide more flexibility for growers,” Thomas said.
• DKS43-76, a medium 66-day-to-flower product well adapted for western Kansas, offers very strong stalks and excellent tolerance to head smut. Thomas said data shows this product can be a good replacement for DKS45-60 brand, having outyielded it by 112 pounds (2 bushels) per acre. 

“While SDM is not an issue in these geographies, we’ve found in the past that some of these traits are also beneficial in providing additional plant health characteristics,” Thomas said.

He noted that in mid-May of last year, a derecho with wind speeds estimated to have exceeded 100 miles per hour hit the south Texas area. “Our two new products were nearly the only ones still standing within our commercial plot in El Campo, Texas,” he said. “We’re excited to offer these new products that provide farmers with both great yield potential and the potential to withstand extreme conditions.”

Both new products were advanced from the DEKALB Sorghum Product Evaluators testing and commercialization program. “Participating farmers from Texas and Kansas planted plots of our promising pre-commercial product lines,” Thomas said. “These growers and neighbors got a first look at how they perform on their own ground.”

He said their harvest results, combined with other small plot results over multiple years, were used to determine the new DEKALB sorghum products to be introduced for the 2025 season.

“For those who saw all of our plots this past year, these two products drew a lot of attention from farmers,” Thomas said. “We’re happy to add these products to an already strong portfolio designed to increase yield potential and top-level standability and disease resistance.” 

For more information, farmers can contact their DEKALB dealer or visit DEKALB.com.