Millets are major food and feed sources in the developing world especially in the semiarid tropical regions of Africa and Asia. The most widely cultivated millets are pearl mil‐ let [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.], finger millet [Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn], foxtail millet [Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauvois], Japanese barnyard millet [Echinochloa esculneta (A. Braun) H. Scholz], Indian Barny...

The origin of millet from Neolithic China has generally been accepted, but it remains unknown whether common millet (Panicum miliaceum) or foxtail millet (Setaria italica) was the first species domesticated. Nor do we know the timing of their domestication and their routes of dispersal. Here, we report the discovery of husk phytoliths and biomolecular components identifiable solely as common mi...

Proso millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) is well-adapted for the Central Great Plains and could be planted in a winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)-millet-fallow rotation, resulting in two crops in 3 yr. To determine the most suitable tillage system for proso millet production within this rotation, seven tillage management systems were evaluated over a 6-yr period (1972-1977). The research was condu...

Abstract Millets are important agricultural crops for arid regions due to short life span and their resistance to salinity and drought conditions. In Iran, three main species of millets including proso millet (Panicum miliaceum), foxtail millet (Setaria italica) and pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) are cultivated in Shouthern Khorasan province, eastern Iran. In order to assess inter-specific...

Before selecting genotypes for nutritional quality characters (protein, oil and micronutrients content) and anti-nutritional factor (phytic acid), it is important to know how much selection is likely to affect yield. Using a diverse range of genotypes, relationships between quality traits with yield and yield attributes in pearl millet were investigated. The number of productive tillers, panicl...

Pearl millet and soybean flour were used in this study. Investigation showed that the major fraction of pearl millet protein was the prolamin followed by globulin and glutelin, while that of soybean was the globulin followed by glutelin and lesser amounts of albumin and prolamin. Cooking of pearl millet or soybean was found to decrease the globulin and true-prolamin fractions, while the prolami...

Foxtail millet (Setaria italica) is one of the oldest domesticated cereal crops in Eurasia, but identifying foxtail millets, especially in charred grains, and differentiating it from its wild ancestor, green foxtail (Setaria viridis), in the archaeobotanical remains, is still problematic. Phytolithic analysis provides a meaningful method for identifying this important crop. In this paper, the s...

BACKGROUND During the Neolithic revolution, early farmers altered plant development to domesticate crops. Similar traits were often selected independently in different wild species; yet the genetic basis of this parallel phenotypic evolution remains elusive. Plant architecture ranks among these target traits composing the domestication syndrome. We focused on the reduction of branching which oc...

Lack of proper complimentary foods continues to be a problem in many parts of the world, especially among low socio-economic status households. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of optimised millet porridges on the nutritional status of moderately malnourished children. The study was a closed cohort study involving 93 moderately wasted children aged 7-36 months and the...