Fingergrass

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Fingergrass
Eleusine coracana in Jardin des Plantes de Toulouse 01.jpg

Finger millet ( Eleusine coracana )

Systematics
Order : Sweet grass (Poales)
Family : Sweet grasses (Poaceae)
Subfamily : Chloridoideae
Tribe : Eragrostideae
Genre : Eleusine
Type : Fingergrass
Scientific name
Eleusine coracana
( L. ) Gaertn.

Finger millet ( Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn. , Syn .: Cynosurus coracanus L. ) is a type of cereal and a useful plant from the sweet grass family (Poaceae).

The scientific generic name Eleusine is derived from the Greek . It is an epithet of the grain goddess Demeter after her famous sanctuary in the Attic city of Eleusis . The epithet coracan is probably derived from the ancient Indian kora (movable joint), while the second element could be derived from the Greek kánna (pipe).

description

This annual herbaceous plant is a perennial grass and reaches heights of 30 to 90 cm. It ends in a finger ear with five to seven individual ears , which curve inwards at the tip, usually like claws. Each up to 10 cm long single ear bears 60 to 80 four- to six-flowered spikelets in two rows. As an exception, the seed and fruit pods do not grow together here, and the small, rounded, 1 to 2 mm thick granules that easily fall out of the wrinkled pericarp are seeds and not caryopses .

Two types have been described: the African highland type and the Afro-Asian type.

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 36.

Occurrence

Finger millet in Ethiopia

The species comes from India or Sudan. Some authors suspect that the species originally came from Africa but was brought to India and cultivated there 3,000 years ago. In parts of South India and Central Africa it is the main food in the countryside. According to R. Govaerts, it originally came from tropical West Africa to Angola and Socotra .

Unlike pearl millet and sorghum , finger millet grows best in humid climates. In India as well as in Africa it grows best in areas with mean rainfall amounts between 800 and 1,200 mm / a. In the Himalayas, the highest cultivation areas are at 2300 m above sea level. NN.

ecology

Finger millet is a short day plant that requires around 12 hours of light per day.

ingredients

The grain contains 13% water, 8% protein , 1.2% fat , 72% carbohydrates , 4.2% raw fiber and 2.7% minerals. The physiological calorific value is 1,430  kJ / 100 g (341.6  kcal / 100 g).

Cultivation and use

5 to 13 dt / ha are achieved, double the amount with irrigation. Usually 80% of the ears are ripe. They are only threshed after they have been dried in the sun. The dry grains can be stored for up to a year without losing quality. When stored, finger millet is rarely attacked by insect storage pests or fungi and is also popular for this reason.

Finger millet is often grown in rotation , alternating with nitrogen-fixing legumes such as peanuts ( Arachis hypogea ), cow peas , black peas ( Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp. Ssp. Unguiculata ), pigeon peas ( Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp. ), But also with other crops such as ramtill herb ( Guizotia abyssinica (L. f.) Cass. ).

Although the estimates are very imprecise, as the information sometimes also includes sorghum, it is assumed that finger millet is currently grown on an area of ​​around 3.8 million hectares.

Plant diseases

Preparations

In India, finger millet is grown, processed and consumed under the name Ragi , mainly in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh . The raga flour is baked into flatbread or cooked as a dumpling (English: Ragi Ball , Kannada: rāgi mudde ). In fermented malted form, it is added to drinks or yoghurt. Raga flour is also made into a pulpy paste.

In Uganda, a porridge made from hot water or hot milk and finger millet flour is often served as "porridge" for breakfast or dinner. The resulting porridge is sugared, and a little lemon juice is often added for additional flavor. In parts of western and northern Uganda there is so-called "millet bread" - these are soft, brown flatbreads made from cooked millet that are served as a side dish. In parts of western Uganda, finger millet is roasted and then ground, this flour is then mixed with cassava flour and processed into kalo under constant heat and water.

Names

Since finger millet is a very old cultivated plant, a number of sometimes very old names are used in the growing areas.

  • Arabic : Tailabon
  • Ethiopia: Dagussa (Amharic / Sodo), tokuso (amharic), barankiya (Oromo)
  • India: Ragi (Kannada), Kelvaragu (Tamil), Maduva (in parts of northern India)
  • Kenya: Wimbi (kiswahili), mugimbi (Kikuyu)
  • Nepal: Koddo
  • Zambia: Kambale, lupoko, mawele, majolothi, amale, bule
  • Zimbabwe: Rapoko, zviyo, njera, rukweza, mazhovole, uphoko, poho
  • Sri Lanka: Kurakkan
  • Sudan: Tailabon (Arabic), ceyut (Bari)
  • Swahili: Wimbi, ulezi
  • Tanzania: Mwimbi, mbege
  • Uganda: Bulo

literature

  • Wolfgang Franke (original author), Reinhard Lieberei (editor), Christoph Reisdorff (editor): Nutzpflanzenkunde. Usable plants of temperate latitudes, subtropics and tropics , Thieme, Stuttgart, 2007, ISBN 978-3135304076 .
  • Helmut Genaust: Etymological dictionary of botanical plant names. 3rd, completely revised and expanded edition. Nikol, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-86820-149-9 .
  • VH Heywood: Flowering Plants of the World , Birkhäuser, 1978, ISBN 978-3764313050 .
  • MS Jairajpuri, WU Khan, KGH Setty and HC Govindu: Heterodera delvii n. Sp. (Nematoda: Heteroderidae), a parasite of ragi (Eleusine coracana) in Bangalore, India . Revue de Nématologie 2: 3-9, 1979.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tropicos. [1]
  2. ^ Rafaël Govaerts (ed.): Eleusine coracana. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved November 18, 2016.

Web links

Commons : Finger millet ( Eleusine coracana )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files