07/31/2025
The sorghum at the ARAS-WRI research station is growing! We’ve been growing sorghum as part of our African Heritage Garden, where we cultivate native African plants which were brought to the American South during the trans-Atlantic slave trade and are now integral to Southern American cuisine.
The historic sorghum press uses a simple process to extract juice from the stalks of sorghum plants. After being stripped of leaves, the stalks are run through the feeding mechanism, where they are passed through the rollers. The rollers apply crushing pressure to the stalks, extracting small amounts of juice. The juice flows through the juice collection system until it runs out the spout and into a collection container. Then, the juice can be cooked down into syrup.
Mules, cows, and horses, which can be attached via the driving mechanism, have historically provided the power needed to run sorghum presses. Currently, our research station has none of these animals, but perhaps our project assistant, Riley, would be willing to volunteer to give it a shot.
The ARAS-WRI gardens are open to the public from 8am-5pm Monday-Sunday. Come check out the sorghum (and many other neat plants) for yourself!
