(Apologies for the tardy posting about little millet, last month's millet-of-the-month. The March millet-of-the-month is foxtail millet - more on that coming soon.) Little millet (Panicum sumatrense) was February's millet-of-the-month. Here are a few items on this grain, followed by some perspectives on the Panicum genus. * The origin of this crop is said by some sources to be the Eastern Ghats region of India, about 2000-2700 years ago. However, some archaeobotanical evidence from the Harappan / Indus Valley civilization seems to indicate its use much earlier. * The plant and the grain of little millet are smaller than those of its cousin, proso millet (P. miliaceum), which was January's millet-of-the-month. * When cooking little millet, it has an almost earthy aroma, but the taste might be characterized as rice-like. Compare with proso millet, which is often described as having a "nutty" flavor. * For some information on little millet as food and part of a healthy diet, see this recent page: https://yummy-valley.com/blog/little-millet-benefits/ Of the 12 botanic genera represented among the millets, only the genus Panicum has two species that are grown at scale: proso millet and little millet (which are now our January & February millets-of-the-month, respectively). Another cultivated millet in this genus is the rare and almost lost "Sonoran millet," P. hirticaule of North America. A couple of dozen wild Panicums are mentioned in a 2022 report by Crop Trust, "Global strategy for the conservation and use of genetic resources of selected millets" (Annex VI). These figure in a larger list of relatives of millets drawn from the IUCN Red List. See: https://zenodo.org/records/7798294 A composite image is attached. On the left side, image is from Patil, E. Harshal, P.A. Vavdiya, G.D. Vadodariya and B.K. Patel. 2021. "A dual purpose, high yielding little millet (Panicum sumatrense) variety ‘GV-4’ (Ambika) for cultivation in Gujarat." Electronic Journal of Plant Breeding, 12(4):1321-1330. https://www.ejplantbreeding.org/index.php/EJPB/article/view/3951 The image on the right side is a personal photo. Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance
