The July Millet-of-the-Month, barnyard millet, is actually 2 main species of Echinochloa - E. esculenta "Japanese barnyard millet," which was domesticated in Japan, and a minor crop in NE Asia and also India, and E. frumentacea "Indian barnyard millet," which originated in South Asia and is a crop in India and neighboring countries, as well as in parts of east & central Africa./1 "Barnyard millet (Echinochloa species) has become one of the most important minor millet crops in Asia, showing a firm upsurge in world production. The genus Echinochloa comprises of two major species, E. esculenta and E. frumentacea, which are predominantly cultivated for human consumption and livestock feed."/2 In North America (and primarily the US), "Japanese millet" refers to either/both species, or more properly to E. esculenta. E. frumentacea is sometimes called "billion dollar grass." Both have been used for forage and wildlife habitat. It does not seem that either have been grown for human consumption. Do either of them have potential as specialty grain crops in selected regions of the continent? The Echinochloa spp. group is complicated, as you may have noted already from some discussions on this list. It also includes a couple of other species discussed as precursors to the two discussed above, which themselves have several varieties. Two other species are apparently cultivated on small scales for food in southern China, and yet another was cultivated in parts of Africa (such as central Mali)./1 /3 This group needs more research on varieties as well as possible plant-breeding; the possibility of hybrids of the two main species has also been raised. Watch this space? Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance Notes: 1. Salej Sood, "Barnyard millet – a potential food and feed crop of future," Plant Breeding, https://doi.org/10.1111/pbr.12243 2. Vellaichamy Gandhimeyyan Renganathan, et al, "Barnyard Millet for Food and Nutritional Security: Current Status and Future Research Direction," Frontiers in Genetics, 11, 2020 https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2020.00500 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinochloa