Echinochloa esculenta
OTHER-JAPANESE MILLET or Barnyard Millet can form part of a green manure crop for crop rotation and resting your soil. Or it can be grown separately as fodder for animals and grain for birds. Seeds are frost tender annuals sown in spring and summer, when soil temps are above 15C as the frost will kill it. Can be grazed on by livestock before 6 weeks, turned into silage before it seeds, or hay, and then grain once the seeds appear and before they scatter. Can also be turned into flour of bread making.
It is said to have originated in Southern Asia and domesticated from barnyard grass (E. crus-galli) in Eastern Asia.
Well suited for colder climates and wet soil it can survive in standing water and flooded soil. Considered a weed when found in rice paddy’s but great as a cover crop for weed control mixed with cow peas which increases the nitrogen fixation of cow peas.
“The grain contains twice the protein content of regular milled white rice (Yabuno, 1987)” and is gluten free.