Is Guinea millet a lost crop?
Guinea millet - one of the *Brachiaria* / *Urochloa* species spotlighted this month as "millet-of-the-month" - is or was a cultivated crop only in the northern part of the Futa Jalon region of Guinea. Locally there it is considered a variety of fonio (*Digitaria exilis*), or *foññe* in the Pular language of the region. Recent research on fonio land races in Futa Jalon did not find any evidence of current cultivation of this species. Apparently farmers in the region distinguished two varieties of what we call Guinea millet: *foññe-kullii* (lit. "fonio of the animals" - some West African languages use such references to designate plants that resemble the main useful plants that are cultivated or managed), and what I'm guessing by the form of the name in the article is *foññe-gaaɓarɗi* (lit. "fonio of the edges," probably meaning banks of streams). Reference made to the "Dictionnaire Pular" at https://www.webonary.org/pular/ (thanks also to Dr. Fousseynou Bah, for help on a question re *kulli*). This excerpt from the research article (cited afterwards) explains: "The varieties *kulli* and *gabardi* were also described as previously popular in the northern villages; however, participants associated these names with photos shown of the crop Guinea Millet (*Brachiaria deflexa* [Schumach] C.E. Hubbard). This is a separate crop known in the region, as noted by Portères (1976). It is described as having very large, black spikelets, is more difficult to process and dehusk, and less enjoyable in food preparations. It could not be found or collected as part of this study. Guinea millet has only ever been recorded as a domesticated crop in the Fouta Djallon region (NRC, 1996), and more fieldwork would be needed to establish whether it [is] still cultivated anywhere in the region or if it is now a truly lost crop. All villages who recognised and previously cultivated Guinea millet said that it was abandoned because of the very different, almost bitter taste." Burton, G., Gori, B., Camara, S., Ceci, P., Conde, N., Couch, C., Magassouba, S., Vorontsova, M. S., Ulian, T., & Ryan, P. (2025). "Landrace diversity and heritage of the indigenous millet crop fonio (*Digitaria exilis*): Socio-cultural and climatic drivers of change in the Fouta Djallon region of Guinea." *Plants, People, Planet*, 7(3), 704–718. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10490 This article is of course of greater interest for its data and discussion on 22 varieties of fonio proper (*D. exilis*) in the region, but I'll leave discussion of that to another time, or to others whenever they wish to do so. For ease of reference, here are the two citations from the excerpt: Portères, R. (1976). "African cereals: Eleusine, Fonio, Black Fonio, Teff, Brachiaria, paspalum, Pennisetum, and African Rice." In J. Harlan, J. M. J. Wet, & A. B. L. Stamler (Eds.), *Origins of African plant domestication* (pp. 409–463). Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110806373.409 National Research Council. (1996). Lost crops of Africa: Volume I: Grains. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/2305 Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance
A millet named after a country or location can be very confusing and tough to identify, especially after several generations. Locally *Guinea* millet may be referred to by different names. *Location names*: I am not familiar with Guinea millet, but when I was young we planted "Siberian" millet on our farm. it actually was a variety " *Siberian* millet" of *Setaria italica,* or more likely common foxtail millet seed harvested, recleaned, germination tested and replanted by growers the following year. It was an orangish seed. There are several other similar foxtail varieties named after counties of which, "*German*" foxtail millet is most common now. However, "*Manta*" named after its origin, *Manchuria*, was developed and named by South Dakota State University. "Hungarian" millet was also a foxtail with less drought tolerance than Siberian. "*Turkestan*" was a foxtail millet grown in northern U.S. Plains in the early 1900s. "Barnyard" millet is mainly called "*Japanese*" millet so as to not get it confused with barnyardgrass--a weed. (More on that below.) *Seed color*: Guinea millet may be tracked down by seed color. Using the example above with foxtail millet, varieties had different colors and seed sizes. A foxtail variety, Sno-Fox, (which I will quote from my book, *How to Produce Proso Millet: A Farmer's Guide*, "Sno-fox is an early maturing foxtail millet that is short with "light" seed color, (the color is lighter than Golden German, but not as white as White Wonder)." Also, proso millet varieties come in many different colors. Argentina produces Yellow Plata (a grayish/silver color). Canada developed "Crown" proso also a grayish color. U.S. growers and buyers the past century have preferred proso with white seed coats, although a bright red early maturing proso, Cerise, is still grown in the Dakotas, Saskatwean and Manatoba. Other U.S. developed red proso varieties include Early Fortune, and Akron (named after a Colorado research station where it was developed), and "Early Fortune." A U.S. variety, "Turghai", grown commercially in the 1920s, still identified as a producible variety in the 1970s, was a reddish/brown seed originating out of Russia or Siberia. *Weed cross*: It is my opinion millets were identified, domesticated, and varieties developed because of their pleasant taste, hullability, and cooking traits. Whereas, wild varieties of the same species had less desirable human palatability traits. Generally, a domesticated crop cannot survive in the wild. However, when grown without agronomically sound practices, millet seeds can be cultivated (buried) survive in the soil, and volunteer as "weeds" years later. Perhaps domesticated Guinea millet still survives and is considered a weed. On the other hand, those harvesting Guinea millet may have actually been harvesting a wild species which exhibited a more bitter taste causing fewer and fewer farmers attempting to reproduce it. Without experiment stations testing and definitively identifying Guinea millet, younger generations may have lost Guinea millet's true identity. For example, the U.S. Corn Belt has a major weedy grass, barnyard grass, with some growing nearly prostrate and other selections four foot tall (which could easily be mistaken for Japanese millet). Likewise, wild proso millet is a Corn Belt weed which was originally identified in Ontario. Since the wild species has black seed, it is my contention proso breeders would be very reluctant to develop high-yielding, agronomically sound varieties of proso with a black seed coat with volunteer thought of as a weed. Perhaps Guinea millet will someday reappear....Gary Wietgrefe On Sun, Sep 21, 2025 at 2:15 PM Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org> wrote:
Guinea millet - one of the *Brachiaria* / *Urochloa* species spotlighted this month as "millet-of-the-month" - is or was a cultivated crop only in the northern part of the Futa Jalon region of Guinea. Locally there it is considered a variety of fonio (*Digitaria exilis*), or *foññe* in the Pular language of the region.
Recent research on fonio land races in Futa Jalon did not find any evidence of current cultivation of this species. Apparently farmers in the region distinguished two varieties of what we call Guinea millet: *foññe-kullii* (lit. "fonio of the animals" - some West African languages use such references to designate plants that resemble the main useful plants that are cultivated or managed), and what I'm guessing by the form of the name in the article is *foññe-gaaɓarɗi* (lit. "fonio of the edges," probably meaning banks of streams). Reference made to the "Dictionnaire Pular" at https://www.webonary.org/pular/ (thanks also to Dr. Fousseynou Bah, for help on a question re *kulli*).
This excerpt from the research article (cited afterwards) explains:
"The varieties *kulli* and *gabardi* were also described as previously popular in the northern villages; however, participants associated these names with photos shown of the crop Guinea Millet (*Brachiaria deflexa* [Schumach] C.E. Hubbard). This is a separate crop known in the region, as noted by Portères (1976). It is described as having very large, black spikelets, is more difficult to process and dehusk, and less enjoyable in food preparations. It could not be found or collected as part of this study. Guinea millet has only ever been recorded as a domesticated crop in the Fouta Djallon region (NRC, 1996), and more fieldwork would be needed to establish whether it [is] still cultivated anywhere in the region or if it is now a truly lost crop. All villages who recognised and previously cultivated Guinea millet said that it was abandoned because of the very different, almost bitter taste."
Burton, G., Gori, B., Camara, S., Ceci, P., Conde, N., Couch, C., Magassouba, S., Vorontsova, M. S., Ulian, T., & Ryan, P. (2025). "Landrace diversity and heritage of the indigenous millet crop fonio (*Digitaria exilis*): Socio-cultural and climatic drivers of change in the Fouta Djallon region of Guinea." *Plants, People, Planet*, 7(3), 704–718. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10490
This article is of course of greater interest for its data and discussion on 22 varieties of fonio proper (*D. exilis*) in the region, but I'll leave discussion of that to another time, or to others whenever they wish to do so.
For ease of reference, here are the two citations from the excerpt:
Portères, R. (1976). "African cereals: Eleusine, Fonio, Black Fonio, Teff, Brachiaria, paspalum, Pennisetum, and African Rice." In J. Harlan, J. M. J. Wet, & A. B. L. Stamler (Eds.), *Origins of African plant domestication* (pp. 409–463). Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110806373.409
National Research Council. (1996). Lost crops of Africa: Volume I: Grains. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/2305
Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance
-- Author, Gary W. Wietgrefe, https://www.RelatingtoAncients.com/ *Destination North Pole--5,000 km by bicycle* is an exciting, endearing, humorous, dangerous and sometimes quirky travel adventure. Hardcover, paperback and e-books are available on Amazon or other on-line retailers. My other books tie education, school system, parenting, technology, and business with 21st century culture and learning.
Thanks, Gary. Much interesting information and discussion here. A few of quick thoughts here: 1. If it were up to me, I would replace all binomial common names for millets in English with single word names, perhaps borrowed from other languages. For example, proso for proso millet and ragi for finger millet. This would help with marketing, I think, but also general understanding that these are unique crops and foods. The term "millet" or "millets" could serve as a category name. 2. With regard to Guinea millet (Brachiaria or Urochloa deflexa) in particular: 2a. This is a unique crop in a limited part of the northern Futa Jalon region in Guinea. In wild form, I understand it to be a famine food in West Africa and perhaps more widely. See: https://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Brachiaria+deflexa 2b. A native of Africa, it apparently has very limited presence in the US, and of course is not a crop or a food source here. See https://fsus.ncbg.unc.edu/cust/2025/main.php?pg=show-taxon.php&&family=Poace... 3. In the region where it is or was cultivated, it's spoken of in French and in Pular as a variety of fonio - using binomial common names (as indicated in my previous post). 3a. Other languages have other names, of course. For example, in the Fulfulde of Mali, which is closely related to Pular, it's called "paggiri" - a name that as I understand it relates to its being gathered or amassed (and paggiri can refer to other grass species, often, again, with binomial references - hard to escape those). In other words, this species is known in Mali but not cultivated, and thought of only as an emergency food source. 3b. Someone once showed me how wild grass seed are gathered in times of famine - a moderately large calabash (~ 12 in or 30 cm), hand-held with the open side up on an angle, is passed gently but firmly across the seed-bearing heads of a stand of grass, and the seeds fall into the calabash. When the calabash begins to fill, the contents are transferred to another container and the procedure is repeated as long as necessary, or until the seed quantities become too small. 4. Regarding visual characteristics, I'm sure I haven't seen or eaten the grain, even tho I lived in the central Futa Jalon for the better part of two years (saw a lot of fonio proper in the field and consumed my share of it). I would expect that the farmers growing and harvesting it in the very north of that region knew what they were dealing with 4a. I have no idea whether it found its way into local markets or whether sellers or buyers could distinguish it by sight (such as we can usually visually distinguish among other small millets). 5. Regarding potential bitterness of Guinea millet, I'm wondering if this might be a function of variety or of factors relating to drying or storage. 6. Other uses of Guinea millet include forage, for example in East Africa, where it is said to get high marks. However, I don't see any mention of it being deliberately planted for that purpose: https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.upwta.2_391 Guinea millet is often mentioned in discussions of native crops and crop domestication in West Africa. Beyond that, however, my impression is that it has not received much research attention on the ground level, either as a grain crop or famine food, or how it is used as food. Altho the Burton et al (2025) article focuses very helpfully on fonio proper (Digitaria exilis), one hopes that the mention of Guinea millet either presages or encourages more research attention to what BOSTID / NAS (1996) called "perhaps the world's most obscure cereal crop." (Complete citations for sources in this paragraph are in my previous email.) Noting your concluding statement, Gary, I'd confirm that with BOSTID / NAS's (op. cit.) summation: "Guinea millet deserves recognition and attention from scientists and others interested in helping food production and agriculture across West Africa. Despite its current obscurity, it just might have a big future both there and in other regions." Don DO, EL, MI, US NAMA On Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 3:44 PM Gary Wietgrefe <gww374@gmail.com> wrote:
A millet named after a country or location can be very confusing and tough to identify, especially after several generations. Locally *Guinea* millet may be referred to by different names.
*Location names*: I am not familiar with Guinea millet, but when I was young we planted "Siberian" millet on our farm. it actually was a variety " *Siberian* millet" of *Setaria italica,* or more likely common foxtail millet seed harvested, recleaned, germination tested and replanted by growers the following year. It was an orangish seed. There are several other similar foxtail varieties named after counties of which, "*German*" foxtail millet is most common now. However, "*Manta*" named after its origin, *Manchuria*, was developed and named by South Dakota State University. "Hungarian" millet was also a foxtail with less drought tolerance than Siberian. "*Turkestan*" was a foxtail millet grown in northern U.S. Plains in the early 1900s. "Barnyard" millet is mainly called "*Japanese*" millet so as to not get it confused with barnyardgrass--a weed. (More on that below.)
*Seed color*: Guinea millet may be tracked down by seed color. Using the example above with foxtail millet, varieties had different colors and seed sizes. A foxtail variety, Sno-Fox, (which I will quote from my book, *How to Produce Proso Millet: A Farmer's Guide*, "Sno-fox is an early maturing foxtail millet that is short with "light" seed color, (the color is lighter than Golden German, but not as white as White Wonder)." Also, proso millet varieties come in many different colors. Argentina produces Yellow Plata (a grayish/silver color). Canada developed "Crown" proso also a grayish color. U.S. growers and buyers the past century have preferred proso with white seed coats, although a bright red early maturing proso, Cerise, is still grown in the Dakotas, Saskatwean and Manatoba. Other U.S. developed red proso varieties include Early Fortune, and Akron (named after a Colorado research station where it was developed), and "Early Fortune." A U.S. variety, "Turghai", grown commercially in the 1920s, still identified as a producible variety in the 1970s, was a reddish/brown seed originating out of Russia or Siberia.
*Weed cross*: It is my opinion millets were identified, domesticated, and varieties developed because of their pleasant taste, hullability, and cooking traits. Whereas, wild varieties of the same species had less desirable human palatability traits. Generally, a domesticated crop cannot survive in the wild. However, when grown without agronomically sound practices, millet seeds can be cultivated (buried) survive in the soil, and volunteer as "weeds" years later. Perhaps domesticated Guinea millet still survives and is considered a weed. On the other hand, those harvesting Guinea millet may have actually been harvesting a wild species which exhibited a more bitter taste causing fewer and fewer farmers attempting to reproduce it. Without experiment stations testing and definitively identifying Guinea millet, younger generations may have lost Guinea millet's true identity. For example, the U.S. Corn Belt has a major weedy grass, barnyard grass, with some growing nearly prostrate and other selections four foot tall (which could easily be mistaken for Japanese millet). Likewise, wild proso millet is a Corn Belt weed which was originally identified in Ontario. Since the wild species has black seed, it is my contention proso breeders would be very reluctant to develop high-yielding, agronomically sound varieties of proso with a black seed coat with volunteer thought of as a weed.
Perhaps Guinea millet will someday reappear....Gary Wietgrefe
On Sun, Sep 21, 2025 at 2:15 PM Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org> wrote:
Guinea millet - one of the *Brachiaria* / *Urochloa* species spotlighted this month as "millet-of-the-month" - is or was a cultivated crop only in the northern part of the Futa Jalon region of Guinea. Locally there it is considered a variety of fonio (*Digitaria exilis*), or *foññe* in the Pular language of the region.
Recent research on fonio land races in Futa Jalon did not find any evidence of current cultivation of this species. Apparently farmers in the region distinguished two varieties of what we call Guinea millet: *foññe-kullii* (lit. "fonio of the animals" - some West African languages use such references to designate plants that resemble the main useful plants that are cultivated or managed), and what I'm guessing by the form of the name in the article is *foññe-gaaɓarɗi* (lit. "fonio of the edges," probably meaning banks of streams). Reference made to the "Dictionnaire Pular" at https://www.webonary.org/pular/ (thanks also to Dr. Fousseynou Bah, for help on a question re *kulli*).
This excerpt from the research article (cited afterwards) explains:
"The varieties *kulli* and *gabardi* were also described as previously popular in the northern villages; however, participants associated these names with photos shown of the crop Guinea Millet (*Brachiaria deflexa* [Schumach] C.E. Hubbard). This is a separate crop known in the region, as noted by Portères (1976). It is described as having very large, black spikelets, is more difficult to process and dehusk, and less enjoyable in food preparations. It could not be found or collected as part of this study. Guinea millet has only ever been recorded as a domesticated crop in the Fouta Djallon region (NRC, 1996), and more fieldwork would be needed to establish whether it [is] still cultivated anywhere in the region or if it is now a truly lost crop. All villages who recognised and previously cultivated Guinea millet said that it was abandoned because of the very different, almost bitter taste."
Burton, G., Gori, B., Camara, S., Ceci, P., Conde, N., Couch, C., Magassouba, S., Vorontsova, M. S., Ulian, T., & Ryan, P. (2025). "Landrace diversity and heritage of the indigenous millet crop fonio (*Digitaria exilis*): Socio-cultural and climatic drivers of change in the Fouta Djallon region of Guinea." *Plants, People, Planet*, 7(3), 704–718. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10490
This article is of course of greater interest for its data and discussion on 22 varieties of fonio proper (*D. exilis*) in the region, but I'll leave discussion of that to another time, or to others whenever they wish to do so.
For ease of reference, here are the two citations from the excerpt:
Portères, R. (1976). "African cereals: Eleusine, Fonio, Black Fonio, Teff, Brachiaria, paspalum, Pennisetum, and African Rice." In J. Harlan, J. M. J. Wet, & A. B. L. Stamler (Eds.), *Origins of African plant domestication* (pp. 409–463). Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110806373.409
National Research Council. (1996). Lost crops of Africa: Volume I: Grains. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/2305
Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance
-- Author, Gary W. Wietgrefe, https://www.RelatingtoAncients.com/ *Destination North Pole--5,000 km by bicycle* is an exciting, endearing, humorous, dangerous and sometimes quirky travel adventure. Hardcover, paperback and e-books are available on Amazon or other on-line retailers. My other books tie education, school system, parenting, technology, and business with 21st century culture and learning.
Very good thoughtful summary. That’s a great idea to communicate millets with one name—proso, teff, pearl, etc. Since corn, wheat, oats, and etc. are one word names. We don’t say “corn grain”, “wheat grain,” “oats grain,” etc. Let’s move to one word vernacular with each millet species and we use “millets” when referring to the whole group of millets. With Guinea millet used for centuries, we must assume it was palatable. Improper selection, improper handling, improper storage, improper cleaning and processing all could have lead to it falling out of favor, as other grains (corn, rice, wheat) moved into African diets. Guinea millet was sacrificed (perhaps due to weedy collection, low yield, or loss of agronomics and handling, or even loss of seed stock which could have been consumed during famine or no business or government seed bank kept reproduction of seed-stockm. Frankly, years ago I worried about the same thing with millets we planted on our farm. A personal example of lost squash seed stock: my mother got a unique squash from a German-Russian lady who said it came from South Russia (now Ukraine). The old lady died. Mother produced the very tasty squash and gave me seed she saved and I used it in our Sioux Falls community garden plot. My mother died. The last year I had a garden plot before I retired someone stole all my ripe squash. I did have some old seed saved and gave that to my nephew who gardens. Apparently, the seed was not viable, and our family lost a very special squash. All I am suggesting is that Guinea millet seed could also have been lost over decades by local farmers…..Gary Sent from my iPhone On Sep 25, 2025, at 9:25 AM, Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org> wrote: Thanks, Gary. Much interesting information and discussion here. A few of quick thoughts here: 1. If it were up to me, I would replace all binomial common names for millets in English with single word names, perhaps borrowed from other languages. For example, proso for proso millet and ragi for finger millet. This would help with marketing, I think, but also general understanding that these are unique crops and foods. The term "millet" or "millets" could serve as a category name. 2. With regard to Guinea millet (Brachiaria or Urochloa deflexa) in particular: 2a. This is a unique crop in a limited part of the northern Futa Jalon region in Guinea. In wild form, I understand it to be a famine food in West Africa and perhaps more widely. See: [1]https://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Brachiaria+d eflexa 2b. A native of Africa, it apparently has very limited presence in the US, and of course is not a crop or a food source here. See [2]https://fsus.ncbg.unc.edu/cust/2025/main.php?pg=show-taxon.php&&fami ly=Poaceae&limit=1&offset=1248&taxonid=42451 3. In the region where it is or was cultivated, it's spoken of in French and in Pular as a variety of fonio - using binomial common names (as indicated in my previous post). 3a. Other languages have other names, of course. For example, in the Fulfulde of Mali, which is closely related to Pular, it's called "paggiri" - a name that as I understand it relates to its being gathered or amassed (and paggiri can refer to other grass species, often, again, with binomial references - hard to escape those). In other words, this species is known in Mali but not cultivated, and thought of only as an emergency food source. 3b. Someone once showed me how wild grass seed are gathered in times of famine - a moderately large calabash (~ 12 in or 30 cm), hand-held with the open side up on an angle, is passed gently but firmly across the seed-bearing heads of a stand of grass, and the seeds fall into the calabash. When the calabash begins to fill, the contents are transferred to another container and the procedure is repeated as long as necessary, or until the seed quantities become too small. 4. Regarding visual characteristics, I'm sure I haven't seen or eaten the grain, even tho I lived in the central Futa Jalon for the better part of two years (saw a lot of fonio proper in the field and consumed my share of it). I would expect that the farmers growing and harvesting it in the very north of that region knew what they were dealing with 4a. I have no idea whether it found its way into local markets or whether sellers or buyers could distinguish it by sight (such as we can usually visually distinguish among other small millets). 5. Regarding potential bitterness of Guinea millet, I'm wondering if this might be a function of variety or of factors relating to drying or storage. 6. Other uses of Guinea millet include forage, for example in East Africa, where it is said to get high marks. However, I don't see any mention of it being deliberately planted for that purpose: [3]https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.upwta.2_391 Guinea millet is often mentioned in discussions of native crops and crop domestication in West Africa. Beyond that, however, my impression is that it has not received much research attention on the ground level, either as a grain crop or famine food, or how it is used as food. Altho the Burton et al (2025) article focuses very helpfully on fonio proper (Digitaria exilis), one hopes that the mention of Guinea millet either presages or encourages more research attention to what BOSTID / NAS (1996) called "perhaps the world's most obscure cereal crop." (Complete citations for sources in this paragraph are in my previous email.) Noting your concluding statement, Gary, I'd confirm that with BOSTID / NAS's (op. cit.) summation: "Guinea millet deserves recognition and attention from scientists and others interested in helping food production and agriculture across West Africa. Despite its current obscurity, it just might have a big future both there and in other regions." Don DO, EL, MI, US NAMA On Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 3:44 PM Gary Wietgrefe <[4]gww374@gmail.com> wrote: A millet named after a country or location can be very confusing and tough to identify, especially after several generations. Locally Guinea millet may be referred to by different names. Location names: I am not familiar with Guinea millet, but when I was young we planted "Siberian" millet on our farm. it actually was a variety "Siberian millet" of Setaria italica, or more likely common foxtail millet seed harvested, recleaned, germination tested and replanted by growers the following year. It was an orangish seed. There are several other similar foxtail varieties named after counties of which, "German" foxtail millet is most common now. However, "Manta" named after its origin, Manchuria, was developed and named by South Dakota State University. "Hungarian" millet was also a foxtail with less drought tolerance than Siberian. "Turkestan" was a foxtail millet grown in northern U.S. Plains in the early 1900s. "Barnyard" millet is mainly called "Japanese" millet so as to not get it confused with barnyardgrass--a weed. (More on that below.) Seed color: Guinea millet may be tracked down by seed color. Using the example above with foxtail millet, varieties had different colors and seed sizes. A foxtail variety, Sno-Fox, (which I will quote from my book, How to Produce Proso Millet: A Farmer's Guide, "Sno-fox is an early maturing foxtail millet that is short with "light" seed color, (the color is lighter than Golden German, but not as white as White Wonder)." Also, proso millet varieties come in many different colors. Argentina produces Yellow Plata (a grayish/silver color). Canada developed "Crown" proso also a grayish color. U.S. growers and buyers the past century have preferred proso with white seed coats, although a bright red early maturing proso, Cerise, is still grown in the Dakotas, Saskatwean and Manatoba. Other U.S. developed red proso varieties include Early Fortune, and Akron (named after a Colorado research station where it was developed), and "Early Fortune." A U.S. variety, "Turghai", grown commercially in the 1920s, still identified as a producible variety in the 1970s, was a reddish/brown seed originating out of Russia or Siberia. Weed cross: It is my opinion millets were identified, domesticated, and varieties developed because of their pleasant taste, hullability, and cooking traits. Whereas, wild varieties of the same species had less desirable human palatability traits. Generally, a domesticated crop cannot survive in the wild. However, when grown without agronomically sound practices, millet seeds can be cultivated (buried) survive in the soil, and volunteer as "weeds" years later. Perhaps domesticated Guinea millet still survives and is considered a weed. On the other hand, those harvesting Guinea millet may have actually been harvesting a wild species which exhibited a more bitter taste causing fewer and fewer farmers attempting to reproduce it. Without experiment stations testing and definitively identifying Guinea millet, younger generations may have lost Guinea millet's true identity. For example, the U.S. Corn Belt has a major weedy grass, barnyard grass, with some growing nearly prostrate and other selections four foot tall (which could easily be mistaken for Japanese millet). Likewise, wild proso millet is a Corn Belt weed which was originally identified in Ontario. Since the wild species has black seed, it is my contention proso breeders would be very reluctant to develop high-yielding, agronomically sound varieties of proso with a black seed coat with volunteer thought of as a weed. Perhaps Guinea millet will someday reappear....Gary Wietgrefe On Sun, Sep 21, 2025 at 2:15 PM Don Osborn <[5]don@milletsalliance.org> wrote: Guinea millet - one of the Brachiaria / Urochloa species spotlighted this month as "millet-of-the-month" - is or was a cultivated crop only in the northern part of the Futa Jalon region of Guinea. Locally there it is considered a variety of fonio (Digitaria exilis), or foññe in the Pular language of the region. Recent research on fonio land races in Futa Jalon did not find any evidence of current cultivation of this species. Apparently farmers in the region distinguished two varieties of what we call Guinea millet: foññe-kullii (lit. "fonio of the animals" - some West African languages use such references to designate plants that resemble the main useful plants that are cultivated or managed), and what I'm guessing by the form of the name in the article is foññe-gaaɓarɗi (lit. "fonio of the edges," probably meaning banks of streams). Reference made to the "Dictionnaire Pular" at [6]https://www.webonary.org/pular/ (thanks also to Dr. Fousseynou Bah, for help on a question re kulli). This excerpt from the research article (cited afterwards) explains: "The varieties kulli and gabardi were also described as previously popular in the northern villages; however, participants associated these names with photos shown of the crop Guinea Millet (Brachiaria deflexa [Schumach] C.E. Hubbard). This is a separate crop known in the region, as noted by Portères (1976). It is described as having very large, black spikelets, is more difficult to process and dehusk, and less enjoyable in food preparations. It could not be found or collected as part of this study. Guinea millet has only ever been recorded as a domesticated crop in the Fouta Djallon region (NRC, 1996), and more fieldwork would be needed to establish whether it [is] still cultivated anywhere in the region or if it is now a truly lost crop. All villages who recognised and previously cultivated Guinea millet said that it was abandoned because of the very different, almost bitter taste." Burton, G., Gori, B., Camara, S., Ceci, P., Conde, N., Couch, C., Magassouba, S., Vorontsova, M. S., Ulian, T., & Ryan, P. (2025). "Landrace diversity and heritage of the indigenous millet crop fonio (Digitaria exilis): Socio-cultural and climatic drivers of change in the Fouta Djallon region of Guinea." Plants, People, Planet, 7(3), 704–718. [7]https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10490 This article is of course of greater interest for its data and discussion on 22 varieties of fonio proper (D. exilis) in the region, but I'll leave discussion of that to another time, or to others whenever they wish to do so. For ease of reference, here are the two citations from the excerpt: Portères, R. (1976). "African cereals: Eleusine, Fonio, Black Fonio, Teff, Brachiaria, paspalum, Pennisetum, and African Rice." In J. Harlan, J. M. J. Wet, & A. B. L. Stamler (Eds.), Origins of African plant domestication (pp. 409–463). Mouton. [8]https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110806373.409 National Research Council. (1996). Lost crops of Africa: Volume I: Grains. The National Academies Press. [9]https://doi.org/10.17226/2305 Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance -- Author, Gary W. Wietgrefe, [10]https://www.RelatingtoAncients.com/ Destination North Pole--5,000 km by bicycle is an exciting, endearing, humorous, dangerous and sometimes quirky travel adventure. Hardcover, paperback and e-books are available on Amazon or other on-line retailers. My other books tie education, school system, parenting, technology, and business with 21st century culture and learning. References 1. https://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Brachiaria+deflexa 2. https://fsus.ncbg.unc.edu/cust/2025/main.php?pg=show-taxon.php&&family=Poace... 3. https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.upwta.2_391 4. mailto:gww374@gmail.com 5. mailto:don@milletsalliance.org 6. https://www.webonary.org/pular/ 7. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10490 8. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110806373.409 9. https://doi.org/10.17226/2305 10. https://www.relatingtoancients.com/
Thanks, Gary. Regarding single names, here's my early venture into this topic: https://donosborn.org/blog/2015/four-millets-recognizing-the-differences/ (I suspended work on this blog largely due to work on NAMA). For now, I'm comfortable using the modifier as an abbreviation for the binomial when the context is clear (e.g., "pearl" rather than "pearl millet"),. However, aside from proso, which stands easily on its own, that doesn't seem like a long-term solution. It's a discussion to have over time. An easy starting point among the other millets might be "ragi" for finger millet, as that crop is introduced to our continent. Regarding the history of Guinea millet, Steven Weber and Dorian Fuller had this to say in 2007: "The early history of West Africa’s small millets (Digitaria exilis, D. uburu, Brachiaria deflexa) remains obscure." ("Millets and Their Role in Early Agriculture" - pre-publication version of paper that appeared in Pragdhara, 2007, https://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/media/documents/Millets_eD2xEYf.pdf ) Google's AI summary suggests the somewhat obvious information that the domesticated version of this species has larger grains and is less susceptible to shattering than the wild forms. In a short search, I did not find a source. Preservation of the domesticated Guinea millet would be a priority. I'm thinking of comparison with the work by Gary Nabhan and others to secure samples of a cultivated variety of Panicum hirticaule (sometimes called Sonoran millet) in NW Mexico in the 1980s. On the topic of losing varieties of cultivated crops, this is of course a bigger and wider issue. Regarding pearl millet in the Sahel, for example, I recall a story heard in Mali about an earlier series of seed fairs (in the late 1990s) in the north of that country. Farmers from villages would come to share what they were growing, and there was at least one instance of farmers from one village discovering that a pearl millet variety they had thought was lost during a period of severe droughts was still extant in another village. The project that sponsored the seed fairs also assisted villages in building structures to house a local "museum" of crop varieties and a common storehouse. Any effort to help farmers (and all of us!) to preserve diverse varieties of crops needs resources and concerted effort. I have no knowledge what the status is of the abovementioned initiative, but given the disorder in that region in more recent years, one fears the worst. All the best, Don DO, EL, MI, US NAMA On Sat, Sep 27, 2025 at 12:24 AM <gww374@gmail.com> wrote:
Very good thoughtful summary.
That’s a great idea to communicate millets with one name—proso, teff, pearl, etc. Since corn, wheat, oats, and etc. are one word names. We don’t say “corn grain”, “wheat grain,” “oats grain,” etc. Let’s move to one word vernacular with each millet species and we use “millets” when referring to the whole group of millets.
With Guinea millet used for centuries, we must assume it was palatable. Improper selection, improper handling, improper storage, improper cleaning and processing all could have lead to it falling out of favor, as other grains (corn, rice, wheat) moved into African diets. Guinea millet was sacrificed (perhaps due to weedy collection, low yield, or loss of agronomics and handling, or even loss of seed stock which could have been consumed during famine or no business or government seed bank kept reproduction of seed-stockm. Frankly, years ago I worried about the same thing with millets we planted on our farm. A personal example of lost squash seed stock: my mother got a unique squash from a German-Russian lady who said it came from South Russia (now Ukraine). The old lady died. Mother produced the very tasty squash and gave me seed she saved and I used it in our Sioux Falls community garden plot. My mother died. The last year I had a garden plot before I retired someone stole all my ripe squash. I did have some old seed saved and gave that to my nephew who gardens. Apparently, the seed was not viable, and our family lost a very special squash. All I am suggesting is that Guinea millet seed could also have been lost over decades by local farmers…..Gary
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 25, 2025, at 9:25 AM, Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org> wrote:
Thanks, Gary. Much interesting information and discussion here. A few of quick thoughts here: 1. If it were up to me, I would replace all binomial common names for millets in English with single word names, perhaps borrowed from other languages. For example, proso for proso millet and ragi for finger millet. This would help with marketing, I think, but also general understanding that these are unique crops and foods. The term "millet" or "millets" could serve as a category name.
2. With regard to Guinea millet (Brachiaria or Urochloa deflexa) in particular: 2a. This is a unique crop in a limited part of the northern Futa Jalon region in Guinea. In wild form, I understand it to be a famine food in West Africa and perhaps more widely. See: https://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Brachiaria+deflexa 2b. A native of Africa, it apparently has very limited presence in the US, and of course is not a crop or a food source here. See https://fsus.ncbg.unc.edu/cust/2025/main.php?pg=show-taxon.php&&family=Poace...
3. In the region where it is or was cultivated, it's spoken of in French and in Pular as a variety of fonio - using binomial common names (as indicated in my previous post). 3a. Other languages have other names, of course. For example, in the Fulfulde of Mali, which is closely related to Pular, it's called "paggiri" - a name that as I understand it relates to its being gathered or amassed (and paggiri can refer to other grass species, often, again, with binomial references - hard to escape those). In other words, this species is known in Mali but not cultivated, and thought of only as an emergency food source. 3b. Someone once showed me how wild grass seed are gathered in times of famine - a moderately large calabash (~ 12 in or 30 cm), hand-held with the open side up on an angle, is passed gently but firmly across the seed-bearing heads of a stand of grass, and the seeds fall into the calabash. When the calabash begins to fill, the contents are transferred to another container and the procedure is repeated as long as necessary, or until the seed quantities become too small.
4. Regarding visual characteristics, I'm sure I haven't seen or eaten the grain, even tho I lived in the central Futa Jalon for the better part of two years (saw a lot of fonio proper in the field and consumed my share of it). I would expect that the farmers growing and harvesting it in the very north of that region knew what they were dealing with 4a. I have no idea whether it found its way into local markets or whether sellers or buyers could distinguish it by sight (such as we can usually visually distinguish among other small millets).
5. Regarding potential bitterness of Guinea millet, I'm wondering if this might be a function of variety or of factors relating to drying or storage.
6. Other uses of Guinea millet include forage, for example in East Africa, where it is said to get high marks. However, I don't see any mention of it being deliberately planted for that purpose: https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.upwta.2_391
Guinea millet is often mentioned in discussions of native crops and crop domestication in West Africa. Beyond that, however, my impression is that it has not received much research attention on the ground level, either as a grain crop or famine food, or how it is used as food. Altho the Burton et al (2025) article focuses very helpfully on fonio proper (Digitaria exilis), one hopes that the mention of Guinea millet either presages or encourages more research attention to what BOSTID / NAS (1996) called "perhaps the world's most obscure cereal crop." (Complete citations for sources in this paragraph are in my previous email.)
Noting your concluding statement, Gary, I'd confirm that with BOSTID / NAS's (op. cit.) summation: "Guinea millet deserves recognition and attention from scientists and others interested in helping food production and agriculture across West Africa. Despite its current obscurity, it just might have a big future both there and in other regions."
Don
DO, EL, MI, US NAMA
On Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 3:44 PM Gary Wietgrefe <gww374@gmail.com> wrote:
A millet named after a country or location can be very confusing and tough to identify, especially after several generations. Locally *Guinea* millet may be referred to by different names.
*Location names*: I am not familiar with Guinea millet, but when I was young we planted "Siberian" millet on our farm. it actually was a variety " *Siberian* millet" of *Setaria italica,* or more likely common foxtail millet seed harvested, recleaned, germination tested and replanted by growers the following year. It was an orangish seed. There are several other similar foxtail varieties named after counties of which, "*German*" foxtail millet is most common now. However, "*Manta*" named after its origin, *Manchuria*, was developed and named by South Dakota State University. "Hungarian" millet was also a foxtail with less drought tolerance than Siberian. "*Turkestan*" was a foxtail millet grown in northern U.S. Plains in the early 1900s. "Barnyard" millet is mainly called "*Japanese*" millet so as to not get it confused with barnyardgrass--a weed. (More on that below.)
*Seed color*: Guinea millet may be tracked down by seed color. Using the example above with foxtail millet, varieties had different colors and seed sizes. A foxtail variety, Sno-Fox, (which I will quote from my book, *How to Produce Proso Millet: A Farmer's Guide*, "Sno-fox is an early maturing foxtail millet that is short with "light" seed color, (the color is lighter than Golden German, but not as white as White Wonder)." Also, proso millet varieties come in many different colors. Argentina produces Yellow Plata (a grayish/silver color). Canada developed "Crown" proso also a grayish color. U.S. growers and buyers the past century have preferred proso with white seed coats, although a bright red early maturing proso, Cerise, is still grown in the Dakotas, Saskatwean and Manatoba. Other U.S. developed red proso varieties include Early Fortune, and Akron (named after a Colorado research station where it was developed), and "Early Fortune." A U.S. variety, "Turghai", grown commercially in the 1920s, still identified as a producible variety in the 1970s, was a reddish/brown seed originating out of Russia or Siberia.
*Weed cross*: It is my opinion millets were identified, domesticated, and varieties developed because of their pleasant taste, hullability, and cooking traits. Whereas, wild varieties of the same species had less desirable human palatability traits. Generally, a domesticated crop cannot survive in the wild. However, when grown without agronomically sound practices, millet seeds can be cultivated (buried) survive in the soil, and volunteer as "weeds" years later. Perhaps domesticated Guinea millet still survives and is considered a weed. On the other hand, those harvesting Guinea millet may have actually been harvesting a wild species which exhibited a more bitter taste causing fewer and fewer farmers attempting to reproduce it. Without experiment stations testing and definitively identifying Guinea millet, younger generations may have lost Guinea millet's true identity. For example, the U.S. Corn Belt has a major weedy grass, barnyard grass, with some growing nearly prostrate and other selections four foot tall (which could easily be mistaken for Japanese millet). Likewise, wild proso millet is a Corn Belt weed which was originally identified in Ontario. Since the wild species has black seed, it is my contention proso breeders would be very reluctant to develop high-yielding, agronomically sound varieties of proso with a black seed coat with volunteer thought of as a weed.
Perhaps Guinea millet will someday reappear....Gary Wietgrefe
On Sun, Sep 21, 2025 at 2:15 PM Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org> wrote:
Guinea millet - one of the *Brachiaria* / *Urochloa* species spotlighted this month as "millet-of-the-month" - is or was a cultivated crop only in the northern part of the Futa Jalon region of Guinea. Locally there it is considered a variety of fonio (*Digitaria exilis*), or *foññe* in the Pular language of the region.
Recent research on fonio land races in Futa Jalon did not find any evidence of current cultivation of this species. Apparently farmers in the region distinguished two varieties of what we call Guinea millet: *foññe-kullii* (lit. "fonio of the animals" - some West African languages use such references to designate plants that resemble the main useful plants that are cultivated or managed), and what I'm guessing by the form of the name in the article is *foññe-gaaɓarɗi* (lit. "fonio of the edges," probably meaning banks of streams). Reference made to the "Dictionnaire Pular" at https://www.webonary.org/pular/ (thanks also to Dr. Fousseynou Bah, for help on a question re *kulli*).
This excerpt from the research article (cited afterwards) explains:
"The varieties *kulli* and *gabardi* were also described as previously popular in the northern villages; however, participants associated these names with photos shown of the crop Guinea Millet (*Brachiaria deflexa* [Schumach] C.E. Hubbard). This is a separate crop known in the region, as noted by Portères (1976). It is described as having very large, black spikelets, is more difficult to process and dehusk, and less enjoyable in food preparations. It could not be found or collected as part of this study. Guinea millet has only ever been recorded as a domesticated crop in the Fouta Djallon region (NRC, 1996), and more fieldwork would be needed to establish whether it [is] still cultivated anywhere in the region or if it is now a truly lost crop. All villages who recognised and previously cultivated Guinea millet said that it was abandoned because of the very different, almost bitter taste."
Burton, G., Gori, B., Camara, S., Ceci, P., Conde, N., Couch, C., Magassouba, S., Vorontsova, M. S., Ulian, T., & Ryan, P. (2025). "Landrace diversity and heritage of the indigenous millet crop fonio (*Digitaria exilis*): Socio-cultural and climatic drivers of change in the Fouta Djallon region of Guinea." *Plants, People, Planet*, 7(3), 704–718. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10490
This article is of course of greater interest for its data and discussion on 22 varieties of fonio proper (*D. exilis*) in the region, but I'll leave discussion of that to another time, or to others whenever they wish to do so.
For ease of reference, here are the two citations from the excerpt:
Portères, R. (1976). "African cereals: Eleusine, Fonio, Black Fonio, Teff, Brachiaria, paspalum, Pennisetum, and African Rice." In J. Harlan, J. M. J. Wet, & A. B. L. Stamler (Eds.), *Origins of African plant domestication* (pp. 409–463). Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110806373.409
National Research Council. (1996). Lost crops of Africa: Volume I: Grains. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/2305
Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance
-- Author, Gary W. Wietgrefe, https://www.RelatingtoAncients.com/ *Destination North Pole--5,000 km by bicycle* is an exciting, endearing, humorous, dangerous and sometimes quirky travel adventure. Hardcover, paperback and e-books are available on Amazon or other on-line retailers. My other books tie education, school system, parenting, technology, and business with 21st century culture and learning.
participants (3)
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Don Osborn -
Gary Wietgrefe -
gww374＠gmail.com