Echinochloa spp. / Japanese / barnyard (Re: Collab Digest, Vol 17, Issue 11)
Thank you, Gary, this is helpful. I have the impression that the appellation Echinochloa crus-galli (var.) frumentacea is fairly old, so any confusion would not be your fault. A USDA guide has it listed as an "alternate" scientific name for E. esculenta./1 On the other hand, the GRIN database has this same name as a synonym for E. frumentacea,/2 The scientific namespace for these species is challenging, so as not to say confusing. However, the various and sometimes overlapping common name usages are even more so, with that of "Japanese millet" seeming to me to be particularly problematic (as a sometimes catch-all) I personally (again, without claiming any expertise) found it useful to think of the two lines as "Japanese barnyard millet" (E. esculenta) and "Indian barnyard millet" (E. frumentacea)./3 /4 The latter seems to be produced for food, primarily in India, much more than the former, but in the US is sometimes called "billion dollar grass." In the US, as you point out in your book,/5 and which I noted also in the USDA descriptions,/1 /6 these species are grown primarily for forage and wildlife. It looks like the seed that you note is available in the US from Johnston Seeds and Specialty Seeds, is mainly intended for these uses. As far as I can tell, most "barnyard millet" in food products is Indian barnyard millet (E. frumentacea), and is produced and packaged in India./7 One would assume that food grade Japanese barnyard millet (E. esculenta) is still cultivated in parts of Japan. It is apparently also grown in Europe for grain for food,/8 /9 although it's hard to be certain about the species. I'm personally wondering if food grade E. esculenta might be a potential crop for the conditions of the more humid areas of northern US and southern Canada./10 Finally, a couple of comments about the map (fig. 20) on p. 201 of your book/5 (a copy of the map is attached). First, it is helpful to have such overview maps of millets in North America, even though this is now over 3 decades old. Second, I'm noting from your source for Japanese millet's placement on the map, that even though this millet may be most grown in the SE US, it is also present across the continental US. I'd be curious to know how its distribution compares, say, with E. frumentacea (to the extent one can be clear that names in different sources are being used in a consistent way). Anyway, that's a lot more detail than I had intended to get into. However, it's useful to try to clarify some of the nomenclature and verify that there are indeed two main cultivated species of Echinochloa, before we get to talking about "barnyard millet(s)" as millet-of-the-month in July. All the best, Don DO, EL, MI, US NAMA Notes: 1. See the USDA plant guide for E. esculenta - both under alternate names and a couple of the references dating to the 1980s: https://plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/pg_eces.pdf 2. USDA GRIN database "Taxon: Echinochloa frumentacea (Echinochloa colona Frumentacea Group)" https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/taxon/taxonomydetail?id=14828 3. The following recent article also uses this common name distinction, in the context of a very useful survey of the two "complexes," along with a third of lesser importance that I may return to later: Renganathan VG, Vanniarajan C, Karthikeyan A, Ramalingam J. "Barnyard Millet for Food and Nutritional Security: Current Status and Future Research Direction." Frontiers in Genetics. 2020 Jun 23;11:500. https://doi.org/10.3389%2Ffgene.2020.00500 PMID: 32655612; PMCID: PMC7325689. 4. The USDA GRIN database also lists these common names, citing a 1992 article by H. Scholz in Taxon https://doi.org/10.2307/1222824 . From the GRIN page on Echinochloa, at https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/cropdetail?type=species&id=224 , go to the pages for E. esculenta and E. frumentacea and select the tab "Common names" to see. 5. I downloaded it from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284179184_How_to_Produce_Proso_Mill... 6. See discussion in the context of one particular variety of E. frumentacea at https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/plantmaterials/mspmcrb13988.pdf 7. https://www.pinterest.com/drdonosborn/millets-plural/barnyard-millet/ 8. For example, "Japanese barnyard millet grits" from a Lithuanian farm (per "Place of Origin") https://www.urbanfood.lt/en/japanese-millet-grits-500-g 9. An interesting survey in French of millets in France, posted on LinkedIn by Philippe Pointereau, mentions "millet japonais (Echinochloa frumentacea)," but without clarity as to whether and for what this is cultivated there: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7075488061702168576/ 10. Interestingly, Michigan Flora notes E. esculenta in the wild - "occasionally cultivated and escaped" - in two counties in the SW of the state: https://michiganflora.net/record/2869 11. Mitchell, Wilma A. 1989. Japanese millet ("Echinochloa Crusgalli" var. "frumentacea") : Section 7.1.6, US Army Corps of Engineers wildlife resources management manual https://erdc-library.erdc.dren.mil/jspui/handle/11681/7217 On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 11:05 AM Joni Kindwall-Moore < joni@snacktivistfoods.com> wrote:
Thanks Gary
On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 4:13 PM Gary Wietgrefe via Collab < collab@lists.millets2023.space> wrote:
More on Japanese millet: In the back of my 1990 book, *How to Produce Proso Millet: A Farmer's Guide,* I describe several other millets that had been grown in the U.S., Japanese millet was one (pp. 197-198). Perhaps I led to some of the confusion as I subtitled the category Echinochloa Crusgalli/Frumentacea. In the 1980s, a South Dakota seed company tried to grow Japanese millet, I assume Echinochloa esculenta, for seed. It was not a particularly good year for crops in general and my field inspection indicated it was not as drought hardy as proso or foxtail millets we customarily grow at this latitude. The seed company, which sold out twenty years ago, did not try to grow it again (to my knowledge). Lastly, there is production of Japanese millet, Echinochloa esculenta, in the U.S. See link to Johnson Seed Company, Enid, OK which offers 50 lb/bags for $57.00 (=$1.14 lb. for seed) which seems reasonable JAPANESE MILLET - Johnston Seed Company <https://www.johnstonseed.com/product/japanese-millet/>. Southeast Seed Inc., Trenton, FL also offers Japanese millet for sale Home - Southeast Seed Inc <https://southeastseed.com/> as does Speciality Seed Co. out of Anguilla, MS Japanese Millet - Specialty Seed <https://specialtyseed.com/japanese-millet/>.
I hope this provides some clarification....Gary Wietgrefe
On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 12:50 PM <collab-request@lists.millets2023.space> wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. Echinocloa spp. / Japanese / barnyard (Re: National Public Radio on millets, June 8, 2023) (Don Osborn)
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Message: 1 Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2023 14:50:12 -0400 From: Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org> To: "collab@lists.millets2023.space" <collab@lists.millets2023.space> Cc: Joni Kindwall-Moore <joni@snacktivistfoods.com>, Dipak Santra <dsantra2@unl.edu>, "Brenner, David (CTR) - REE-ARS" <david.brenner@usda.gov> Subject: [Collab] Echinocloa spp. / Japanese / barnyard (Re: National Public Radio on millets, June 8, 2023) Message-ID: <CA+RHibWMpVQCuwjyBxY4j03XJKr0vB8on7= izdx4k3QFEp2i2Q@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Thanks Dipak for your clarifications, and Joni for your question. I'm proposing to retitle this fork in the thread to make it easier for others to find later in the list archives.
I'm interested in clarifying this space, because there are two species of Echinochloa (primarily) that are referred to with various related common names, and sometimes the same one. Here's my layperson's understanding of what is obviously a very complicated space:
* E. esculenta, is apparently descended from the wild E. crus-galli, and domesticated in Japan as a food crop./1 I see one extension page where E. crus-galli is listed as a forage crop, with the common name "barnyard grass,"/2 and others where E. esculenta with common name "Japanese millet," is also listed as a forage crop,/3 or cover crop as DIpak indicated. E. esculenta is often called Japanese millet or Japanese barnyard millet.
* E. frumentacea, is apparently descended from the wild E. colona, and domesticated somewhere in South Asia (?)./4 E. frumentacea as a forage crop is also called Japanese millet,/5 unhelpfully, as well as billion dollar grass./6 It is sometimes considered a weed./7 I have the impression that most if not all of the commercialized "barnyard millet" food products from India are from E. frumentacea. Another term is "Indian barnyard millet."
One extension site, also unhelpfully, lumps the two species together under the name "Japanese millet," as forage crops./8
I'd be most interested to know of cases where either of the above are grown in North America for food quality grain, on a commercial or even a small-scale, basis, for whatever use or market. No idea, Joni, about the particular issues with dehulling any of these.
This is very quick and inadequate, but hopefully not misleading.
By the way, this subgroup of millets will collectively be the "millet-of-the-month," under the heading "barnyard millet," in July
Don.
DO, EL, MI, US NAMA
Notes (sorry, these were hastily and unsystematically gathered): 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinochloa_esculenta 2.
https://www.misin.msu.edu/facts/detail/?project=misin&id=256&cname=Barnyardg... 3.
https://www.canr.msu.edu/potatooutreach/research/mpic%20report%202018%20upda... (page 93) 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinochloa_frumentacea 5. For example at
https://midwestcovercrops.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/MCCC_Proceedings-20... (page 51 in the concatenation of documents with individual page numbers) 6. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/plantmaterials/mspmcrb13988.pdf (this document concerns a variety called "chiwapa") 7. https://weedid.cals.vt.edu/profile/237 8. https://www.midwestcovercrops.org/species/grasses/millet/
On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 1:28?PM Joni Kindwall-Moore < joni@snacktivistfoods.com> wrote:
Has anyone had experience with dehulling Japanese millet? Is it similar to dehulling Proso millet?
On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 2:06?PM Dipak Santra via Collab < collab@lists.millets2023.space> wrote:
Japanese millet (Echinochloa esculenta), also called barnyard millet, possibly is used in cover crop mix and as human food 9after dehulling (like other millet) for ethnic population (mainly Indian) in North America. It is very popular in India grocery stores what I have seen.
Dipak
Dipak Santra, Ph.D.
*Associate Professor (Alternative Crops Breeding Specialist)*
President, International Broomcorn Millet Association
Department of Agronomy and Horticulture
University of Nebraska?Lincoln
Panhandle Research & Extension Center
4502 Ave I, Scottsbluff, NE 69361
*(*308) 632-124 <3086321372>4 (work) / (*308) 765-2324* (cell)
*From:* Collab <collab-bounces@lists.millets2023.space> *On Behalf Of *Don Osborn *Sent:* Saturday, June 10, 2023 10:47 PM *To:* Brenner, David (CTR) - REE-ARS <david.brenner@usda.gov> *Cc:* collab@lists.millets2023.space *Subject:* Re: [Collab] National Public Radio on millets, June 8, 2023
Non-NU Email ------------------------------
Thank you, David, I appreciate your sharing this. It's of course another version of the radio segment that aired last month on a more local scale (Kansas CIty, apparently):
https://www.kcur.org/2023-05-17/millets-drought-climate-united-nations
< https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.kcur.org/2023-05-17/millets-drought-climate-united-nations__;!!PvXuogZ4sRB2p-tU!BRDQvnZU8qxQSiQ-O_iRtpRc8pS78j3wSvk59HaJWe3fq8FKBtcR3mGB5dwL6Vp7LODfOdAD5rPRXf8uiA$> . Altho shorter, the NPR Morning Edition version captures all the main points. And of course it went out nationally in the US, which is great.
Regarding the content of the segment, I'm particularly curious to know more about the Japanese millet (Echinochloa esculenta) that Linus Rothermich is growing - what are the markets for this grain in North America? I am aware of the plant's use as forage and for wildlife in the US.
TIA for any more info,
Don
DO, EL, MI, US
NAMA
bcc: Rob Myers
On Fri, Jun 9, 2023 at 1:18?PM Brenner, David (CTR) - REE-ARS < david.brenner@usda.gov> wrote:
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/08/1180964010/the-united-nations-declares-2023-t...
< https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.npr.org/2023/06/08/1180964010/the-uni...
[image: Image removed by sender.] <
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.npr.org/2023/06/08/1180964010/the-uni...
The United Nations declares 2023 the International Year of Millets <
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.npr.org/2023/06/08/1180964010/the-uni...
Millets, an alternative crop to corn and soybeans, is getting new attention in the U.S. The resilient grain could help U.S. farmers
survive
climate change.
www.npr.org < https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/www.npr.org__;!!PvXuogZ4sRB2p-tU!BRDQvnZU8...
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Don Osborn