During my last half of high school and all four of my undergraduate college years, my family called a chunk of real estate bordering Huntersfield Mountain home, on the edge of the Catskills. We raised beef cattle: Charolais, Angus, Herefords and their hybrids. They grazed and we baled small square hay, mostly orchard grass. And we grew Japanese millet (Echinochloa esculenta), which we baled (after it was dry enough to lose half its weight).
We fed those bales before they warmed up too much. The cattle loved them. Our farmstead’s average altitude was about 2,500 feet – which chopped the growing season on both ends. Millet’s 65-day growing season fit in that window quite well. Millet didn’t need a lot of water either – something we normally have abundantly in the Northeast.
That said, there’s still no reason for Northeast growers to be sloppy about managing water resources. A major factor intensifying drought in already water-deficient areas is loss of soil organic matter (OM). Classic USDA data show that for every 1% loss of OM, the soil’s water reservoir benefit drops by about 16,000 gallons/acre. It’s particularly important that wherever moisture is very limited to have abundant soil OM to hang onto what little rainfall growers receive.
The increasingly common corn/soy non-rotation – absent autumn cover crops/winter forages – slowly but surely dissipates soil OM. These two crops lack the fibrous root system so necessary to build up abundant carbon reserves.
Regarding moisture management, let’s tap into the wisdom of University of Texas agronomists. UT researchers tell us that when rainfall is deficient, a given quantity of precipitation supports twice as much forage dry matter growth from sorghum and/or sudangrass as from whole plant corn forage. From North Dakota State University – a state with an average annual rainfall of 17 inches – we learn that millets are even more efficient at converting water to forage dry matter. With the idea that millets need even less water than sorghum, I recommend planting this crop on soils with less than 4% OM. Plant sorghums or sudangrasses (or their hybrids) with OMs in the 4% – 6% range; hopefully, the latter are available in gene-6 varieties. With sod OMs exceeding 5%, the moisture reserve situation should be adequate to support short season silage corn hybrids. Growers do well to plant such corn varieties on fields where first-cut hay crops have just been harvested.
Further support for millets comes from Purdue University agronomists, who say that millets can be grown in a wide range of environmental conditions; this is because they’re well adapted to many hot, dry regions. Because of their short growing season of 65 – 70 days, they fit well into semi-arid, higher altitude regions. They were some of the earliest prehistoric crops to be cultivated, as a staple food in China, India and Siberia as well as Europe and parts of Africa. All millets are blessed with the C-4 photosynthetic trait.
Corn, sorghum, sudangrass, their hybrids, millets and even sugarcane are classified as C-4 crops. During photosynthesis, most plants create compounds using three-carbon modules (C-3s). But the six crops just listed perform their carbon-structuring function using four-carbon modules (C-4s). The C-4 trait is very advantageous, particularly in regions where too much heat combines with too little water.
Here’s why: In order for a plant to gather carbon atoms from the air, it opens up its stoma (microscopic openings on its leaves). C-4 group members use their stoma to limit water loss as well as retain acquired carbon; they do so more efficiently than C-3s. Here’s how these crops rank in terms of moisture retention “skills” – millets, sorghums, sudangrasses, sugarcane and then corn.
In research drawn from India, the country which grows the most millet, scientists determined that millets can grow well on soils less than six inches deep. They don’t require rich soils to survive and fit well into that country’s abundant drylands. Indian agronomists stress that millet culture relies on very little synthetic fertilizer. Most Indian farmers growing millet get by quite well with barnyard manures coming from milking water buffalo.
According to some of these agronomists, “In recent times, household-produced bio-fertilisers (sic) significantly reduce the huge burden of fertiliser subsidy borne by the government. Grown under traditional methods, no millet attracts any pest. Therefore, their [millets’] need for pesticides is close to nil. Thus, they are a great boon to the agricultural environment.”
Thus, Northeast sustainable farmers growing millet can have a lot in common with their counterparts in ancient lands. We’ve discussed drought conditions, but when the precipitation pendulum swings the other way, millets fare quite well with moisture surpluses. Japanese millet can be grown in wetlands, depending on the region. It doesn’t grow well in sandy soils but grows well in flooded soils and standing water, provided part of the plant remains above water. But caution: E. esculenta has a limited frost tolerance.
In the Northeast, the most common millets are Japanese and pearl. Japanese millet has coarse leaves and grows up to five feet tall, depending on moisture availability and fertility. The seed head is four to eight inches long and dark purple in color with no awns. Seed may be drilled (no deeper than one inch) or broadcast. The recommended drilled seeding rate is 20 lbs./acre. Bump that up to 25 – 30 lbs./acre when broadcast.
When millet is headed out, harvest it for forage, because it’s already done creating roughage dry matter. In the Northeast there’s not much likelihood of it drying down enough to combine successfully. At most locations in our region, millet can be planted until July 15 and should be ready to harvest by Sept. 21.
Another plus for millet – should you decide to graze its aftermath regrowth – there’s no prussic acid. The flip side to that coin is that growers planting corn the next year won’t have that natural poison to fight off rootworms.
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