Foxtail millet

Foxtail Millet

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Foxtail millet

Foxtail millet (botanic name Setaria italica) is the second most widely planted species of millet

Millet

The millets are a group of small-seeded species of cereal Crop or grains, widely grown around the world for food and fodder. They do not form a scientific classification group, but rather a functional or agronomic one....
, and the most important in East Asia

East Asia

East Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either Geography or cultural terms. Geography and geopolitically, it covers about 12,000,000 km?, or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe, though some categorize Tibet, Xinjiang, and Mongolia as Central Asia....
. It has the longest history of cultivation among the millets, having been grown in China

China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
since sometime in the sixth millennium BC. Other names for foxtail millet include Italian millet, German millet, Chinese millet, and Hungarian millet.

Foxtail millet is an annual

Annual plant

An annual plant is a plant that usually germinates flowers and dies in one year. True annuals will only live longer than a year if they are prevented from setting seed....
grass

Poaceae

Poaceae or Gramineae is a family in the Class Liliopsida of the Magnoliophyta. Plants of this family are usually called grasses; the shrub- or tree-like plants in this family are called bamboo ....
with slim, vertical, leafy stems which can reach a height of 120-200 cm (4-7 feet.) The seedhead is a dense, hairy panicle

Panicle

A panicle is a compound raceme, a loose, much-branched Indeterminate growth inflorescence with Pedicel flowers attached along the secondary branches ....
5-30 cm (2-12 in.) long.

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Common names for Foxtail millet

In India: Tinai, camai, kavalai, kambankorai are some of the names for millet in Tamil. Nuvanam is millet flour. The gruel made from millet, the staple of Ancient Tamils, is called kali, moddak kali, kuul, and sangati. Korralu (Telugu), Navane (Kannada)
In Chinese-Speaking Territories: Xiao Mi, meaning 'Little Rice'.

Cultivation

In China, foxtail millet is the most common millet and one of the main food crops, especially among the poor in the dry northern part of that country. In Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
and North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
it is planted at a moderate scale for hay and silage, and to a more limited extent for birdseed.

It is a warm season crop, typically planted in late spring. Harvest for hay

Hay

Hay is a generic term for Poaceae or legumes that have been cut, dried, and stored for use as animal fodder, particularly for grazing animals like cattle, horses, domestic goat, and sheep....
or silage

Silage

File:Cattle eating corn silage.jpgSilage is fermentation , high-moisture fodder that can be fed to ruminants or used as a biofuel feedstock for anaerobic digesters....
can be made in 65-70 days (typical yield is 15,000-20,000 kg/ha of green matter or 3,000-4,000 kg/ha of hay), and for grain

Cereal

Cereals, or cereal grains, are mostly Poaceae cultivated for their edible brans or fruit seeds . Cereal grains are grown in greater quantities and provide more energy worldwide than any other type of crop; they are therefore staple foods....
in 75-90 days (typical yield is 800-900 kg/ha of grain). Its early maturity and efficient use of available water make it suitable for raising in dry areas.

Diseases of foxtail millet include leaf and head blast disease caused by Magnaporthe grisea
Magnaporthe grisea

Magnaporthe grisea, also known as rice blast fungus, rice rotten neck, rice seedling blight, blast of rice, oval leaf spot of graminea, pitting disease, ryegrass blast, and johnson spot, is a plant-pathogenic fungus that causes an important disease affecting rice....
, smut

Smut (fungus)

The smuts are fungus, mostly Ustilaginomycetes , that cause plant disease.Smuts affect grasses, notably including cereal crops such as maize. They initially attack the plant's reproductive system, forming galls which darken and burst, releasing fungal spores which infect other plants nearby....
disease caused by Ustilago crameri, and green ear caused by Sclerospora graminicola
Sclerospora graminicola

Sclerospora graminicola is a plant pathogen.External links * * ...
. The unharvested crop is also susceptible to attack by bird

Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s and rodent

Rodent

Rodentia is an Order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing Incisors#The_Rodent_incisor in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....
s.

History
HIStory

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is a double album by Michael Jackson, released on June 20, 1995, and is Jackson's ninth. The first disc, named "HIStory Begins" consists of a selection of Jackson's greatest hits from the singer's past fifteen years, while the second, named "HIStory Continues" features new songs, with the...
and domestication
Domestication

Domestication or taming refers to the process whereby a population of living things becomes accustomed to a controlled environment by other plants or animals through a process of Selective breeding....

The wild

Wild

The term wild generally refers to:* Wildlife, all non-domesticated plants, animals, and other organisms* Wilderness or Wilderness area, a natural environment on Earth...
antecedent

Antecedent

An antecedent is a preceding event, condition, cause, phrase, or word. It may refer to:* Antecedent moisture, a hydrologic term describing the relative wetness condition of a sewershed...
of foxtail millet has been securely identified as Setaria viridis, which is interfertile with foxtail millet; wild or weed

WEED

WEED is a radio station broadcasting a Gospel format. Licensed to Rocky Mount, North Carolina, USA, it serves the area. The station is currently owned by Northstar Broadcasting Corporation....
y forms of foxtail millet also exist. Zohary and Hopf note that the primary difference between the wild and cultivated forms is "their seed dispersal biology. Wild and weedy forms shatter their seed

Seed

A seed is a small Plant embryogenesis plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some Food storage. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant....
while the cultivars retain them." The earliest evidence of the cultivation of this grain comes from the Peiligang culture

Peiligang culture

The Peiligang culture is a name given by archaeologists to a group of Neolithic communities in the Luo River in Henan Province, China. The culture existed from 7000 BC to 5000 BC....
of China, which also cultivated the common millet, but foxtail millet became the predominant grain only with the Yangshao culture

Yangshao culture

The Yangshao culture was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the central Yellow River in China. The Yangshao culture is dated from around 5000 BC to 3000 BC....
.

Foxtail millet arrived in Europe later; carbonized seeds first appear in the second millennium BC in central Europe. The earliest definite evidence for its cultivation in the Near East is at the Iron Age

Iron Age

In archaeology, the Iron Age was the stage in the development of any people in which tools and weapons whose main ingredient was iron were prominent....
levels at Tille Hoyuk in Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
, with an uncorrected radiocarbon date of about 600 BC.