A millet named after a country or location can be very confusing and tough to identify, especially after several generations. Locally *Guinea* millet may be referred to by different names. *Location names*: I am not familiar with Guinea millet, but when I was young we planted "Siberian" millet on our farm. it actually was a variety " *Siberian* millet" of *Setaria italica,* or more likely common foxtail millet seed harvested, recleaned, germination tested and replanted by growers the following year. It was an orangish seed. There are several other similar foxtail varieties named after counties of which, "*German*" foxtail millet is most common now. However, "*Manta*" named after its origin, *Manchuria*, was developed and named by South Dakota State University. "Hungarian" millet was also a foxtail with less drought tolerance than Siberian. "*Turkestan*" was a foxtail millet grown in northern U.S. Plains in the early 1900s. "Barnyard" millet is mainly called "*Japanese*" millet so as to not get it confused with barnyardgrass--a weed. (More on that below.) *Seed color*: Guinea millet may be tracked down by seed color. Using the example above with foxtail millet, varieties had different colors and seed sizes. A foxtail variety, Sno-Fox, (which I will quote from my book, *How to Produce Proso Millet: A Farmer's Guide*, "Sno-fox is an early maturing foxtail millet that is short with "light" seed color, (the color is lighter than Golden German, but not as white as White Wonder)." Also, proso millet varieties come in many different colors. Argentina produces Yellow Plata (a grayish/silver color). Canada developed "Crown" proso also a grayish color. U.S. growers and buyers the past century have preferred proso with white seed coats, although a bright red early maturing proso, Cerise, is still grown in the Dakotas, Saskatwean and Manatoba. Other U.S. developed red proso varieties include Early Fortune, and Akron (named after a Colorado research station where it was developed), and "Early Fortune." A U.S. variety, "Turghai", grown commercially in the 1920s, still identified as a producible variety in the 1970s, was a reddish/brown seed originating out of Russia or Siberia. *Weed cross*: It is my opinion millets were identified, domesticated, and varieties developed because of their pleasant taste, hullability, and cooking traits. Whereas, wild varieties of the same species had less desirable human palatability traits. Generally, a domesticated crop cannot survive in the wild. However, when grown without agronomically sound practices, millet seeds can be cultivated (buried) survive in the soil, and volunteer as "weeds" years later. Perhaps domesticated Guinea millet still survives and is considered a weed. On the other hand, those harvesting Guinea millet may have actually been harvesting a wild species which exhibited a more bitter taste causing fewer and fewer farmers attempting to reproduce it. Without experiment stations testing and definitively identifying Guinea millet, younger generations may have lost Guinea millet's true identity. For example, the U.S. Corn Belt has a major weedy grass, barnyard grass, with some growing nearly prostrate and other selections four foot tall (which could easily be mistaken for Japanese millet). Likewise, wild proso millet is a Corn Belt weed which was originally identified in Ontario. Since the wild species has black seed, it is my contention proso breeders would be very reluctant to develop high-yielding, agronomically sound varieties of proso with a black seed coat with volunteer thought of as a weed. Perhaps Guinea millet will someday reappear....Gary Wietgrefe On Sun, Sep 21, 2025 at 2:15 PM Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org> wrote:
Guinea millet - one of the *Brachiaria* / *Urochloa* species spotlighted this month as "millet-of-the-month" - is or was a cultivated crop only in the northern part of the Futa Jalon region of Guinea. Locally there it is considered a variety of fonio (*Digitaria exilis*), or *foññe* in the Pular language of the region.
Recent research on fonio land races in Futa Jalon did not find any evidence of current cultivation of this species. Apparently farmers in the region distinguished two varieties of what we call Guinea millet: *foññe-kullii* (lit. "fonio of the animals" - some West African languages use such references to designate plants that resemble the main useful plants that are cultivated or managed), and what I'm guessing by the form of the name in the article is *foññe-gaaɓarɗi* (lit. "fonio of the edges," probably meaning banks of streams). Reference made to the "Dictionnaire Pular" at https://www.webonary.org/pular/ (thanks also to Dr. Fousseynou Bah, for help on a question re *kulli*).
This excerpt from the research article (cited afterwards) explains:
"The varieties *kulli* and *gabardi* were also described as previously popular in the northern villages; however, participants associated these names with photos shown of the crop Guinea Millet (*Brachiaria deflexa* [Schumach] C.E. Hubbard). This is a separate crop known in the region, as noted by Portères (1976). It is described as having very large, black spikelets, is more difficult to process and dehusk, and less enjoyable in food preparations. It could not be found or collected as part of this study. Guinea millet has only ever been recorded as a domesticated crop in the Fouta Djallon region (NRC, 1996), and more fieldwork would be needed to establish whether it [is] still cultivated anywhere in the region or if it is now a truly lost crop. All villages who recognised and previously cultivated Guinea millet said that it was abandoned because of the very different, almost bitter taste."
Burton, G., Gori, B., Camara, S., Ceci, P., Conde, N., Couch, C., Magassouba, S., Vorontsova, M. S., Ulian, T., & Ryan, P. (2025). "Landrace diversity and heritage of the indigenous millet crop fonio (*Digitaria exilis*): Socio-cultural and climatic drivers of change in the Fouta Djallon region of Guinea." *Plants, People, Planet*, 7(3), 704–718. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10490
This article is of course of greater interest for its data and discussion on 22 varieties of fonio proper (*D. exilis*) in the region, but I'll leave discussion of that to another time, or to others whenever they wish to do so.
For ease of reference, here are the two citations from the excerpt:
Portères, R. (1976). "African cereals: Eleusine, Fonio, Black Fonio, Teff, Brachiaria, paspalum, Pennisetum, and African Rice." In J. Harlan, J. M. J. Wet, & A. B. L. Stamler (Eds.), *Origins of African plant domestication* (pp. 409–463). Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110806373.409
National Research Council. (1996). Lost crops of Africa: Volume I: Grains. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/2305
Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance
-- Author, Gary W. Wietgrefe, https://www.RelatingtoAncients.com/ *Destination North Pole--5,000 km by bicycle* is an exciting, endearing, humorous, dangerous and sometimes quirky travel adventure. Hardcover, paperback and e-books are available on Amazon or other on-line retailers. My other books tie education, school system, parenting, technology, and business with 21st century culture and learning.