SYRUPY SWEET: CHRIST LUTHERAN CHURCH IN GORDONVILLE MAKES MOLASSES AS FUND-RAISER

Rose Lee Nussbaum of Whitewater, filled a Mason jar with finished molasses from the cooling tub.

Steve Meier of Jackson fed sorghum cane into a press while his 9-year-old Belgian draft horse, Duke, walked in a circle to power the press.

Marilyn Neal, left, and Maggie Williams, both of Gordonville, stripped sorghum cane stalks before the stalks were cut on the John and Ellen Lorberg farm near Gordonville.

John Lorberg loaded bundles of sorghum cane while Ed Gerler cut and bundled the sorghum cane near Gordonville Wednesday.

GORDONVILLE -- Members of Christ Lutheran Church in Gordonville are using a combination of patience, cooperation and old-fashioned ingenuity to offer up some sweet goodness during their Molasses Making Days.

The church is currently harvesting its first crop of sorghum cane, and over the next week, members and friends will help turn the cane's semisweet green juice into thick, brown, all-natural sorghum molasses.

The molasses will be sold to the public to raise money for the church's overseas missions projects.

There are more than a half-million acres of sorghum planted each year in Missouri, but very little is used to make molasses. According to the Missouri Agricultural Statistics Services of the Missouri Department of Agriculture, the bulk of the acreage is harvested as grain primarily used by the poultry industry. Approximately 10,000 acres of the sorghum is used in silage as feed for farm animals, and probably less than 1,000 acres is used in molasses.

Southeast Missouri claims almost half of the sorghum acreage in the state, but Christ Lutheran Church is working with only two acres in their first molasses attempt. One of the church's two acres grew on the farm of John and Ellen Lorberg. Their farm, located on Stone Haven Lane one-half mile west of Gordonville on Highway Z, also serves as the site of the molasses-making process.

Member and co-organizer Ellen Lorberg said the procedure of making sap into molasses takes about two hours, but the harvesting process requires much more time. Strippers walk the fields and strip the leaves from the cane, she said, then church members follow with sticks to remove the tops of the canes, which are later bagged to be sold as bird seed.

The cane stalks are cut into strips, she said, and then they are run through one of two sorghum presses.

"The presses squeeze the green juice out of the cane stalks into a holding tank, and a spigot feeds it into a 12-foot-long molasses cooking pan," she said. "We're sticking to a lot of the old-time ways of doing things and we've got a lot of people who used to do this years ago helping out."

Although this is her first year making sorghum molasses, member and co-organizer Roselee Nussbaum has spent many years making maple syrup. Sorghum molasses should not be confused with maple syrup, she said, which is made using the sap of maple trees. Sorghum is thicker and sweeter than syrup, and it takes a much longer and hotter routine to get from sap to sorghum, she said.

"I think there's about an eight-to-one ratio, which means it takes about eight gallons of sap for one gallon of molasses," she said. "We have a fireman whose job is to maintain a constant heat under the table. Boiling (temperature) is 212 degrees, and molasses requires about 234 degrees."

In contrast, Nussbaum said, maple syrup requires a constant temperature of about 220 degrees to cook properly.

Ellen Lorberg said making the molasses has helped church members strengthen their extended-family bonds. People have pooled their talents and worked hard to get the cane harvested, just like the old-timers did years ago. Others who couldn't help with the harvest made sure there was plenty of food prepared for those who did.

"It's been a good fellowship thing to get all of the people in the church involved," she said. "

Church members hope to sell most of their projected 300 gallons of molasses to the public at $6 per quart and $4 per pint. People may watch the molasses-making process throughout next weekend, which will include a sorghum press run by a big Belgian horse named Duke and another run by a steam engine owned by John E. Hall.

Almost half of the sorghum in the state is raised in the Southeast Missouri area, on more than 220,000 acres. In Cape Girardeau County, sorghum acreate is usually around 7,000 acres.

In other nearby counties:

*Bollinger, 5,000 acres.

*Perry: 1,000 acres.

*Scott: 15,000 acres.

*Stoddard: 30,000 to 35,000 acres.

*New Madrid: 40,000 to 50,000 acres.

*Pemiscot: 15,000 acres.

*Mississippi: 25,000 acres.