Seed grasses of millet

Millet is general name for small seed grasses. It is applied to a number of cultivated annual grasses included in genera that are not closely related. It includes finger, pearl, foxtail varieties and proso (the most common) millet.

About 20 species of 10 genera of grasses are called millet. They are annuals with a short growing season and have small seeds, generally of low quality for human nutrition.

Millets are some of the oldest cultivated crops, and have been used since ancient times. They were grown by the lake dwellers of Switzerland in the Stone Age, and were sown by the Chinese in religious ceremony as early as 2700 BC.

Sorghum is a special type of millet with large seeds, typically used for animal feed, but it is the primary food grain in many parts of the world where it is ground and made into porridge and cakes. It is also used to yield oil, sugars and alcoholic beverages.

Pearl millet has a large number of cultivated races that provides the staple food in the drier parts of Africa and India.
Seed grasses of millet

Sorghum in United States

Sorghum is an important crop species in the United States and around the world. Sorghum is a high biomass grass in the botanical tribe, Andropogoneae. The end uses of sorghum are varied such as cereal grain, forage, syrup and more recently as bioenergy production.

It was suggested that the first sweet sorghum introduction was Chinese Amber which was introduced into the United States from France in 1853. In about 1857, 16 cultivars of sorghum were brought to the United States from Natal.

Early sorghum development in North America involved natural hybridization. Deliberate hybridization followed soon thereafter, with some of the earliest crosses being made in 1914.

The first improved cultivar of sorghum is attributed to H. Willets Smith in 1916 who farmed near Garden City, Kansas. Smith selected uniform strains of sorghum from a chance hybridization of kafir and milo types. This was followed with the development of extensive hybridization programs.

Sorghum ranks fourth among grain crops in the United States, behind maize, soybean and wheat in total production.

Sorghum stems and foliage are used for pasture, green chop or hay, and silage; plant bases are used for fuel for cooking and stems are used o make basket and fish traps.
Sorghum in United States

Cereal of sorghum

Sorghum is a grass in the same family as corn and sugarcane. It was domesticated about 5,000 years ago and nearly all of its genetic material comes from varieties that were originally cultivated in Africa.

The genus of sorghum is found in warm, dry climates, especially in Africa, India, Pakistan, China and the Southern USA where its members are grown as important grain or forage crops.

Sorghum is a food staple in many parts of Africa and Asia. The seed of grain sorghum or dura as it is often called, contains no gluten, and hence is by itself not suitable for bread making. Normally for human consumption the grain is group into flour, mixed with water or fat and cooked to form a porridge or batter.

Dehulling and grinding, usually manual, have been mechanized and even constitute an industry in some regions,. Manufacturing of beverages such as sorghum beer is an equally important outlet for its production.

Alternatively, in other countries, especially in Asia, sorghum is produced primarily for silage. India is the largest producer of sorghum that is cut green for silage.

The sorghum grain like all other cereal grains, consists of three distinct parts; the pericarp, endosperm and germ.

Sorghum has a similar chemical composition to maize. However, sorghum is often reported to have a slightly lower protein and starch digestibility when compared to maize.

The average protein content of sorghum is 11-12%. Sorghum is often recommend as a safe food for celiac disease patients, because it is more closely related to maize than wheat, rye and barley.

Research being conduct on new, high phenol varieties of sorghum is demonstrating certain varieties of sorghum are loaded with chemicals that are able to block the initiation, promotion and progression of colon, esophageal, lung, liver, pancreas and breast cancer.

The anthocyanins in sorghum also found to reduce tumor growth, reduce elevated blood cholesterol, and prevent oxidation of low-density-lipoprotein.

Although sorghum cultivation has become an important component of agriculture in a few industrial countries, it remains largely a developing country crop with 95% of the world’s area cultivated to sorghum is in developing countries.

Sorghum will remain an important food security crop in less favorable environments in tropical Africa.

Cereal of sorghum