Two #millets share the spotlight as September's "millet-of-the-month": browntop millet and Guinea millet. Both are in the genus Brachiaria (or Urochloa). Browntop millet (B. ramosa) is native to South or Southeast Asia, and is a cereal crop in that region (notably in India). In North America it is also called Dixie signalgrass, and is currently grown mainly in the SE US, for wildlife, forage, and as a cover crop. Whole grain browntop millet for human consumption is packaged and exported from India on a small scale. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brachiaria_ramosa * https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2022.974126/full * https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/pg_urra.pdf Guinea millet (B. deflexa) probably originated in West Africa, and is now widely distributed in Africa and South Asia (and may be present in Florida and Alabama, per Kew.org). Its edible grains are a food source, but it is apparently cultivated as a crop only in the north of the Futa Jalon plateau of Guinea (and apparently is sometimes lumped together with fonio [Digitaria exilis], a major crop in that region). * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brachiaria_deflexa * https://www.dineshkhedkar.co.in/mpdb/record.php?act=view&id=MG007 Sources for components of the attached image (browntop in left & center; Guinea on the right): (left) Adapted from: Eleanor Kingwell-Banham and Dorian Q. Fuller (2014). Brown Top Millet: Origins and Development. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286351352_Brown_Top_Millet_Origins_... (center) Tapas Chandra Roy. TCR Connecting Agriculture https://tcrconnectingagriculture.com/2020/03/browntop-millet/ (right) Adapted from: Image credited to Thomas Le Bourgeois, via https://portal.wiktrop.org/observation/show/377 Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance
