We just hit the two-year anniversary of the runaway Canadian wildfire smoke epidemic, the one engulfing America’s northern states in early June 2023. At that time, ABC Online news headlined “Canadian wildfire smoke live updates: Air quality alerts issued for 13 states.”

Canadian officials said firefighters were scrambling to put out blazes in Quebec, where more than 160 forest fires were active. Those fires were fueled by high temperatures and dry conditions, according to officials.

Fast forward to June 2, 2025, when the Washington Post headlined “Where smoke from Canadian wildfires has spread into the U.S.” Its lead-in sentence read, “Smoke ended up as far south as the coastal Southeast U.S. over the weekend.” A satellite photo, reaching from the Mississippi River to Maine, showed a plume of high-altitude smoke covering the biggest Great Lakes, then looping around the Northeast, grazing the Buffalo area, then hooking into the Atlantic off South Carolina.

This trough shape is caused by the high-altitude northern branch of the jet stream. According to Ian Livingston, writing for the Post, “As dozens of wildfires continue to burn across Canada, flames are sending far-reaching plumes of smoke into the sky and unhealthy air to distant places. Some of the more gigantic blazes have been delivering thick smoke that spread southward into the United States over recent days.”

According to the “Climate Atlas of Canada,” climate change increases the likelihood and severity of Canadian wildfires. Warmer temperatures and drier conditions due to climate change create more fuel for fires, extending the fire season.

Failing to keep carbon in our soils has helped accelerate climate change. This was central in 2023’s Mississippi Basin mega-drought, which stymied most of America’s river commerce, not just agricultural. All three branches of that basin – the Mississippi River itself, the Ohio River and the Missouri River – experienced widespread precipitation shortages. This huge watershed drains 41% of the continental U.S. For all three sub-basins in this region to be so short of water simultaneously was statistically unlikely. But it happened.

Was the moisture deficit predisposing much of Quebec and other Canadian provinces to excess drought part of the same problem impacting heartland U.S.? Climate experts continue discussing that issue. One thing is for sure: the very prevalent corn/soy “non-rotation” keeps liberating carbon from soil into the air, as well as shunting lost soil and nutrients toward the Gulf of Mexico.

Fortunately, more and more farmers are embracing sorghum, sudangrass, their hybrids and millets as forage sources for livestock. Cheaper to grow than corn on a pound of digestible dry matter basis, these hot climate summer annuals (HCSAs), with their fibrous root systems, also slow soil degradation – and carbon dioxide greenhouse gas release.

This discussion led me to Tom Kilcer’s online June 2022 Crop Soil News titled “Why BMR Sorghum?” Kilcer, a Certified Crop Advisor, wrote in his opening paragraph, “With any shifting weather patterns, not putting all your eggs in one basket – or one crop – could give you a much more stable forage supply. One of those alternative crops is the often-ignored brown mid-rib (BMR) forage sorghum and/or sorghum-sudan. Plant it when the soil is warmer than 60º – preferably 65º – and the forecast is for warmer conditions. This occurs after most if not all haylage is harvested. Taking first cutting followed by sorghum is one way to increase the yield from a runout hayfield.”

He cited the benefits that sorghum offers compared to corn: “Right out of the gate we save about $100/acre on seed costs. Replicated trials, with good management, near the Canadian border in upper New York have consistently given yields equal to or exceeding those of the corn variety trial planted next to it. Harvested properly and fed in high forage neutral detergent fiber rations, milk production from BMR sorghum is equal to corn silage, with only minor adjustments in the concentrate – slightly more cornmeal, significantly less soymeal.”

A little-known bonus point is that corn following sorghum experiences little or no rootworm issues. Sorghum root’s prussic acid kills rootworm larvae, then the adults look elsewhere to lay the eggs for the next generation. Drilled sorghum in narrow rows protects the soil from erosion and raindrop impact at least a month earlier than corn does. In moisture-short conditions sorghum yields 50% – 100% more digestible dry matter than corn on the same water (per University of Texas research).

Deer do not care for sorghum; they’re known to hide in one farmer’s sorghum and come out to eat the neighbors’ corn.

Finally, an increasingly important issue: Sorghum does not get corn tar spot. It has its own tar spot different from corn’s, but sorghum agronomists have not seen this disease in the U.S. For those with corn fields devastated in recent years by tar spot and concerned about the carryover on plant debris, sorghum eliminates that worry.

Kilcer still recommends older-style non-BMR sorghum, considering it the premier, economical forage for raising dairy replacements and dry cows. “Corn silage is problematic in that the starch contributes to fat deposition rather than body size. The highly digestible BMR sorghum will do the same,” he said. “Non-BMR forage sorghum species will fill the animal to maximize rumen development and function without getting the animals over-conditioned. Managed correctly, it will run higher in protein than corn silage, and thus reduce expensive soymeal additions. It is higher yielding than the BMR versions. Farmers report that they are growing better, large-framed replacement animals when they switched from corn to sorghum as the preferred forage.”

Here’s my own plug for Japanese millet: This crop is more forgiving than sorghum and/or sudangrass when grown in less-than-ideal soil fertility. A field that tests pH of 5.7, low in phosphorus and is marginally drained will support millet much better than it will the other HCSAs.