You're welcome, Gary, and thanks for the question.
There's a single reference that I find to the lysine content of the cultivated varieties of Panicum hirticaule (Mexican or Sonoran panic grass, or Sonoran millet, called in Wariho language sauwi) - that being in the late Barney Burns' 2011 article./1/2 I don't see a source for that information, nor do I find mention in Dr. Nabhan's much earlier article./3 However the latter does note that "James Berry (pers. comm.) analyzed grain of the domesticated P. sonorum from Wariho, and found it to contain 12.8% crude protein, a respectable value for grain."
The amino acid lysine,/4 as you know, is one component of a complete protein, and tends to be low in millets like other cereals. The content in sauwi may be higher than average, or in any event, higher than that of the main staple, corn? I'm well beyond my expertise in all of this, but will try to pose an intelligent question to Dr. Nabhan on the chance he is able to shed more light on the matter. (More commonly one combines pulses, which tend to be high in lysine, with grains to get a complete protein./5)
It would be wonderful if publicity on this millet during the International Year of Millets could result in further research on its qualities. It should also be considered in the current interest in Native American "lost crops"/6 (a term that in this case happily doesn't mean they are actually lost, but rather lost to research and wider knowledge/7). Care should be taken, however, not to sever this crop resource from its history and cultural roots - that we have this millet at all to discuss in practical terms today, is the result of its selection and cultivation over millennia by native peoples of what is now SW US and NW Mexico. With that caveat in mind, it would be great to be able to propagate sauwi as another crop for the future of agriculture.
2. Dr. Burns passed away in 2014.
3. Gary Nabhan & J.M.J. de Wet. 1984. "Panicum sonorum in Sonoran Desert Agriculture." Economic Botany, 38(1), 65?82.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4254574 (NB- you can register for a free JSTOR account to read a limited number of articles per month online)
7. With thanks to Noel Vietmeyer and Mark Dafforn, who when with NAS/NRC used this concept in Lost Crops of the Incas & the Lost Crops of Africa series
Don, thank you for revealing another Panicum "Sonoran?"--especially one sourced from North American antiquity that also has lysine. I'm curious if it's lysine levels are higher than proso now grown....Gary
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Today's Topics:
1. August millet-of-the-month (part 2): "Sonoran millet" (Don Osborn)
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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2023 14:15:48 -0400
From: Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org>
To: collab@lists.millets2023.space
Subject: [Collab] August millet-of-the-month (part 2): "Sonoran
millet"
Message-ID:
<CA+RHibXor6piTTWcQVqPSAFF3XaP32XsbuXR61JMKx-Ho5kD2g@mail.gmail.com>
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Sharing the millet-of-the-month spotlight in August with little millet
(Panicum sumatrense) is its North American "cousin," sometimes called
Sonoran millet (P. hirticaule or P. sonorum). Both are in the same genus as
proso millet (P. miliaceum), which was the January millet of the month.
Sonoran millet has been well documented as being under cultivation in what
is now the SW US and NW Mexico since prehistoric times until modern
times./9 /10 Cultivation now is apparently limited mainly to small farms
notably of Wariho Indians in Sonora, Mexico, where it was documented as
recently as 2011./11
Regarding nomenclature, it seems that P. hirticaule/12 may be used more for
the wild varieties, and P. sonorum/13 for the larger and larger-grained
variants that have been cultivated. However usage varies, esp. in older
literature.
At one point, it was thought that this grain - its cultivated variety - was
extinct./11 An important range of cultivation in the Colorado River delta
effectively disappeared as an indirect effect of the Hoover Dam./9 Its
present status is "vulnerable."/13 There is some discussion of whether this
grain is truly "domesticated" in the strictest agricultural sense of the
term, but there is no question that it has long been selected and
cultivated.
Archaeological evidence shows that Native Americans cultivated or gathered
seeds of several Panicum and Setaria species, especially before the
domestication and spread of corn/maize.
Don Osborn, PhD
(East Lansing, MI, US)
North American Millets Alliance
(The above is based on an earlier post to Collab, in October 2022,
https://lists.millets2023.space/pipermail/collab/2022-October/000090.html ;
the image and links to sites from which its parts were sourced, below, are
new)
Notes:
1. Gary Nabhan & J.M.J. de Wet. 1984. "Panicum sonorum in Sonoran Desert
Agriculture." Economic Botany, 38(1), 65?82.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4254574
2. https://www.nativeseeds.org/pages/sonoran-panic-grass
3. Barney T. Burns. 2011. "A Short History of Panic Grass." Seedhead News,
No. 109, Spring 2011, pp. 6-7.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0157/0808/files/SeedheadNews109-2011-Spring.pdf?6793537935674027774
(Republished in 2015 at
https://www.nativeseeds.org/blogs/blog-news/a-short-history-of-panic-grass )
4. https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Panicum_hirticaule
5.
https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.130251/Panicum_sonorum
Attached image credits:
(left) https://cabezaprieta.org/plant_page.php?id=1533
(top right) https://calscape.org/Panicum-hirticaule-%28%29
(middle right)
https://medivetus.com/botanic/panicum-hirticaule-mexican-panicgrass-edible-uses/
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