Types of Millet
Types of Millet Grown in the High Plains
Proso Millet
Proso Millet
There are three main markets for proso millet — bird feed, livestock feed and human consumption. Proso grain protein compare favorably with wheat and sorghum and is higher than corn grain protein levels.
Panicum miliaceum, has many "common names" including proso millet, broomcorn millet, common millet, broomtail millet, hog millet, Kashfi millet, red millet, and white millet. Proso is an annual grass like all other millets, but it is not closely related to pearl, foxtail, finger, or barnyard millets. Proso millet adapts to many soil and climatic conditions and is an excellent crop for dryland and no-till farming. Proso millet has a short growing season, and requires little water.
Proso millet is a relatively low-demanding crop and prone to few diseases. Thus, proso millet is often used in organic farming systems. Proso millet is used as an intercrop to help avoid summer fallow, and continuous crop rotation can be achieved. Its superficial root system and its resistance to atrazine residue make proso millet a good intercrop between two water- and pesticide-demanding crops. The stubbles of the previous crop, allowing more heat into the soil, result in faster and earlier millet growth. While millet occupies the ground, because of its superficial root system, the soil can replenish its water content for the next crop. Later crops, for example, a winter wheat, can in turn benefit from the millet stubble, which act as snow accumulators.
The seeds are small and their color varies from brownish black to olive brown, orange-red, golden and ivory. Proso millet has one of the lowest water requirements of any grain crop, but it is also subject to drought injury because of its shallow root system and does not grow well on coarse, sandy soils.
Foxtail Millet
Foxtail Millet
Foxtail millet is an annual grass grown for human food and birdseed. It is the second-most widely planted species of millet. Other names for the foxtail millet include dwarf setaria, foxtail bristle-grass, giant setaria, green foxtail, Italian millet, German millet, and Hungarian millet is primarily grown for forage and occasionally for birdseed. Foxtail millet is primarily cultivated in arid and semi-arid regions
Foxtail millet is generally swathed at the late boot to late bloom stage followed by a short curing period and then baled. Foxtail millet generally grows best in southeastern Colorado.
Pearl Millet
Pearl Millet
Pearl millet is the fifth most important cereal crop worldwide (accounts for approximately 50% of the total world production of millets) and cultivated especially by small holder farmers in arid and semi-arid regions due to its drought and salt tolerance.
Primarily cultivated in arid regions of Africa, India and Asia. Pearl millet is a summer annual crop well-suited for double cropping and rotations.
Pearl millet is well adapted to growing areas characterized by drought, low soil fertility, high salinity or low pH, and high temperature. it can be grown in areas where other cereal crops, such as maize or wheat, would not survive.
It is a nutritious drylands cereal, rich in protein, fiber and essential micronutrients including iron, zinc and folate.Pearl millet grain is generally superior to sorghum as human food and at least equals maize in value as a feed grain. The forage, or stover, at harvest is an important secondary product.
Pearl millet genome sequence provides a resource to improve agronomic traits in extreme environments
Finger Millet
Finger Millet
Finger millet has two important properties: Rich in important minerals (one of the richest sources of calcium, iron, manganese, and zinc, in addition to being a fairly good source of vitamins and several essential amino acids) and resistant towards drought and heat. Considered a drought tolerant crop (preferring moderate rainfall), finger millet can be cultivated on higher elevations than most tropical crops. Finger millet can grow on various soils and can tolerate soil salinity to a certain extent. Widely cultivated in India, many African countries, China, and, historically until the present day, even in Japan.
Hybridized of two different plant species, the plant is thus polyploid with a four-fold set of chromosomes and almost twice as many genes as its original species. The size and complexity of the finger millet genome are thought to have conferred the broad environmental tolerance of finger millet.