Hi,

I love Barnyard millet! We make dosa, idli, kichidi, chapati, and sometimes GF bread loaves, cookies and cakes.  I enjoyed ICAR's float in the Indian Republic Day Parade. I have been to Hyderabad a few times to see the various entities involved with millet agriculture and research. Dr. Khadar, India's millet man was just here on a tour at various venues in America and mostly at Sangam and temple events as a key speaker. As you may know, he ran a clinic in India and conducted various research and came up with a booklet on how to use millet as medical interventions. I can attest that these remedies work. I have attached it if you want it for your professional file.  I became interested in Millet because my husband's family are indigenous agricultural people from Telangana who participated the past 35+ years with the Deccan Development Society in working on economic development and building the Sangams. My interest is more of a Social-economic and Cultural perspective. I have been following PNW Cooperative farmers experimenting with Millet here on the Palouse and building awareness on its potential to solve food insecurity by 2050 in various places around the World. My interest here is to keep up to date in the developments of millet agriculture here in the USA, yet I do hope my son's interest going to college this year for the first time will be in Environmental Biology & Chemistry and I'm hoping he is going to have various experiences in his community in Andra Pradesh and Teleguana. Thank you, and keep up the good work with the Millet Alliance.


Send Collab mailing list submissions to

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to

You can reach the person managing the list at

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Collab digest..."


Today's Topics:

  1. Barnyard millet(s) - July millet-of-the-month (Don Osborn)
  2. Re: Barnyard millet(s) - July millet-of-the-month (Don Osborn)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2023 14:31:02 -0400
From: Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org>
Subject: [Collab] Barnyard millet(s) - July millet-of-the-month
Message-ID:
    <CA+RHibVw4CFSnCFiVKjwGhm2zpXvYpeJWmed_cYNh3pcxFZ9jA@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2023 22:33:10 -0400
From: Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org>
Subject: Re: [Collab] Barnyard millet(s) - July millet-of-the-month
Message-ID:
    <CA+RHibVRuRA5nWHVgpHV6FLm=RkzLX1J5b9iLky7=Ko0RKM2NQ@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Quick follow-ups:

I just tried barnyard millet grains for the first time last week. Cooked in
a rice cooker, and the aroma was something like little millet. The
interesting taste was kind of flat with some tones in the back of the
tongue (this is not a "nutty" flavor millet). The word that came to mind
was taste was "wild," which won't help anyone, I realize, but it went well
with a lentil dish. (It would be good to have taste test groups blind taste
a range of millets in varying order and see what terms they come up with.)

What I tried was a product from India, under the Manna label. I'm
assuming it is Indian barnyard millet. The easiest and maybe only source
for food grade barnyard millet in the US and I'd imagine Canada as well,
will probably be a store selling foods imported from India, so likely would
be Indian barnyard millet (E. frumentacea).

Don

DO, EL, MI, US
NAMA


On Mon, Jul 31, 2023 at 2:31?PM Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org> wrote:

> 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
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...

------------------------------

Subject: Digest Footer



--
Collab mailing list


------------------------------

End of Collab Digest, Vol 19, Issue 1
*************************************