Don, I am told that grain-teff performs well in the Nebraska high plains. Many of the millets could be grown across large areas where they are not grown now. It is possible to have widely adapted crops but only local marketing infrastructure, proportional to small markets. By infrastructure I include personalities that find ways to market novel crops. David Brenner ________________________________ From: Collab <collab-bounces@lists.millets2023.space> on behalf of Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org> Sent: Monday, September 4, 2023 8:02 PM To: collab@lists.millets2023.space <collab@lists.millets2023.space> Subject: [External Email][Collab] Grain teff and proso millet in the US: Rainfed or irrigated? [External Email] If this message comes from an unexpected sender or references a vague/unexpected topic; Use caution before clicking links or opening attachments. Please send any concerns or suspicious messages to: Spam.Abuse@usda.gov As discussed briefly on this list this past June,/1 SBSF's Crop Locator project is developing a tool to map out ideal locations for growing the various millets for grain. It works from data on where a given crop is successfully grown (e.g., agroclimatic, soils, altitude), and then finds locations elsewhere in the world with closely matching characteristics, The project included a map for proso millet but not yet for teff. For proso millet (slide 15 via the link), it's not clear whether US data was incorporated. However I understand they would be seeking data on locations only where irrigation is not normally necessary to get a grain harvest. https://media.licdn.com/dms/document/media/D4D1FAQGogZwAC2uXpA/feedshare-doc... It would be helpful to be able to supply information to the Crop Locator project about where grain proso is grown, along with data on those locations. Since I understand mapping teff is also foreseen, it would be helpful to know about whether the teff grown in say Idaho or Nevada is purely rainfed or relies to one or another extent on irrigation to produce grain. I recall on this list in March 2022, Steve DeWitt mentioned his experiment with rainfed teff for grain in Oklahoma was not successful, but that another farmer there was successfully growing grain teff with irrigation./2 Irrigation, as long as there is water available, makes a lot of things possible, but it would not seem that Oklahoma would be a positive data point for this grain for the Crop Locator project. On the other hand, part of the story of the introduction of teff culture in the NW US in the early 1980s was that Wayne Carlson saw similarities between the areas of Ethiopia where he had seen teff grown, and the Snake River valley./3 So, the question is, over the ensuing years, whether teff is typically grown there without need for irrigation. If so, this information might help refine SBSF's data on locations best suited for grain teff. Grain teff is also grown in Minnesota (introduced by Tesfa Drar, also in the early 1980s),/4 as well as in one operation we know about in Michigan (Claire Smith, a subscriber to this list, is part of that)./5 So, the question may end up being, where *can't* grain teff be grown? That kind of question, in turn, might affect the model used by the mapping project. A side note on teff. I've probably mentioned this before, but teff is also fairly widely grown in the US for animal forage and hay - one source I don't have at hand suggested it's in half of the US states already. However, this use is not a focus of the mapping project. Thanks in advance for any information, Don Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance Notes: 1. https://lists.millets2023.space/pipermail/collab/2023-June/000220.html 2. https://lists.millets2023.space/pipermail/collab/2022-March/000033.html 3. https://www.voanews.com/a/demand-rises-teff-other-alternatives-wheat/3030148... 4. https://tefffarms.com/what-is-teff/ 5. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/teffola-the-littlest-grain-that-could This electronic message contains information generated by the USDA solely for the intended recipients. Any unauthorized interception of this message or the use or disclosure of the information it contains may violate the law and subject the violator to civil or criminal penalties. If you believe you have received this message in error, please notify the sender and delete the email immediately.