Millet

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Millet
Millet

Millet

Systematics
Monocots
Commelinids
Order : Sweet grass (Poales)
Family : Sweet grasses (Poaceae)
Genre : Panicum ( Panicum )
Type : Millet
Scientific name
Panicum miliaceum
L.

The millet , Real millet , Prosohirse or Baraga ( Panicum miliaceum ) is a plant of the genus Panicum ( Panicum ). This type of millet is an old cereal plant . In Europe it was replaced by potatoes and maize and is still grown in large parts of Asia. An English-language common name is Proso millet .

Description and ecology

Habitus of Panicum miliaceum subsp. rudderal
Stem with leaves and hairy leaf sheath of Panicum miliaceum subsp. rudderal . The ligule consists of hairs.
The hairs on the leaf sheath stand on warts.
Panicle branch of Panicum miliaceum subsp. miliaceum with spikelets.
Spikelets of Panicum miliaceum subsp. miliaceum with:
lower glume (Glu ')
upper glume (Glu ")
lemma of the sterile flower (Lem')
lemma of the fertile flower (Lem")
palea of ​​the fertile flower (Pal)
Caryopsis wrapped in cover (Lem ") and palea (Pal).
Peeled and peeled caryopses as they are on the market.

Vegetative characteristics

The millet is an annual herbaceous plant and reaches heights of 30 to 100, rarely up to 150 centimeters. Their upright stems are usually at the lower node branched, serrated, 2 to 5 millimeters long haired thick and below the node 2 to 3 millimeters. The four to eight nodes are hairy 1 to 2 millimeters long. The leaf sheaths are clearly ribbed and wire-haired between the ribs. The ligule is membranous and ciliate 1 to 2 millimeters long. The leaf blades are 10 to 40 centimeters long and 8 to 25 millimeters wide. They are flat, ribbed, hirsute in the lower area, otherwise scattered short hairs, ribs and edge are rough.

Generative characteristics

The paniculate inflorescence is 10 to 30 centimeters long, upright to overhanging, loose to dense. In the lower area it is often enveloped by the uppermost leaf sheath. The side branches are rough and angular. The 2 to 6 millimeters long stalked spikelets are 4.5 to 5 millimeters long and pointed. The lower glume is five- to seven-veined, two-thirds as long as the spikelet and acuminate. The upper glume is nine to eleven-nerved and acuminate. The lower floret is sterile, its lemma is nine to eleven-nerved. The lemma of the upper, hermaphrodite floret is about one mm shorter than the spikelet, light yellow, blackish or white, shiny and thickened with cartilage. The anthers are 1.2 to 1.5 millimeters long and dark purple. The flowering period extends from June to September. There is self-pollination .

The caryopsis is slightly smaller than the lemma, has a circular shape and is around 3 millimeters long. Their color ranges from straw-colored to reddish-brown, olive-brown and blackish, but it can also be white. The thousand grain weight is between 4 and 8 grams. The protein content is up to 10 (rarely even up to 18) percent, the fat content around 4 percent. Some varieties even contain glue and thus provide bakable flour .

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 36.

Occurrence

The original distribution area of the millet is in Central Asia . According to other authors, it originally comes from the area from the Indian subcontinent to Myanmar. It has been cultivated as a cereal plant in the Old World for thousands of years and is often overgrown. It needs less warmth than other types of millet.

It grows wild in Central Europe on rubble sites, railway systems and in ports. In gardens it usually grows wild from birdseed. It occurs mainly on nutrient-rich, light and sandy loam soils of the collines, and less often of the montane altitude .

Systematics

There are three subspecies within the species:

  • Cultivated millet ( Panicum miliaceum subsp. Miliaceum ): The spikelets do not fall out or fall off when the fruit is ripe, the spikelet axis only breaks under pressure. In Central Europe there are three (Con) varieties:
    • Panicum miliaceum convar. effusum Aleph. , the common millet, with a spread out and very loose panicle. It is the most pristine cultivated millet.
    • Panicum miliaceum convar. contractum Aleph. , the lump millet, with a contracted panicle that is denser at the top than at the base. The branches are drooping.
    • Panicum miliaceum var. Compactum , the thick millet, with a contracted panicle that is equally dense everywhere, all branches are upright.
  • Weed millet ( Panicum miliaceum subsp. Ruderale (Kitagawa) Tzvelev ): The panicle is upright, its branches stick out stiffly. The spikelet axis disintegrates below the upper flower, and the spikelet stalk is also articulated. When ripe, the false fruits and also the husks fall off. The husks are dark in color. This subspecies grows in corn fields and in debris areas. It has been proven in Germany since 1982.
  • Loggerhead millet ( Panicum miliaceum subsp. Agricolum Scholz & Mikolas ): The panicle is more contracted and nodding. The spikelets fall out of the remaining glumes at maturity, but the membranous glumes remain. It is known from Carinthia, Styria, the Czech Republic and Alsace.

Cultivation and use

Millet is grown mainly in Central Asia, northern China, Japan and India. The vegetation period is 60 to 90 days, depending on the location and variety, and the water requirement is relatively low. The northern cultivation limit is the 20 ° C July isotherm . In the Himalayas , millet is grown at altitudes of 3000 meters. The grains do not ripen in the panicles at the same time, due to the high risk of failure, the harvest takes place before full ripeness. The yields are usually around 1 ton per hectare and under favorable conditions can be up to 5 tons.

The fruits are consumed as grain, porridge and bread or processed into millet beer . In northern China it is also used for the production of millet wine (similar to the rice wine Huang Jiu 黄酒). The straw is well suited as feed for ruminants.

history

Millet, still known as “millet” in the 19th century, is one of the earliest domesticated grains, its origin is in Central Asia. The oldest finds come from the Old Neolithic .

In Europe it is documented from the end of the Middle Bronze Age and becomes one of the main grains , especially in Central and Southeastern Europe during the Late Bronze Age . In Germany it occurs in around 30% of all sites in pre-Roman times. In the first three centuries AD, millet was partly displaced by barley .

The Romans called the millet milium and used it for bread and porridge.

In the Middle Ages it was an important food in Central Europe and was considered the "poor man's bread". However, the focus shifted towards Eastern Europe. It was only eaten as a porridge, as there were no types that contained gluten. It was later largely supplanted by the potato in Central Europe and by maize in Southern Europe . The cultivation was carried out in sandy areas until the beginning of the 20th century, for example in Pomerania, Posen, Thuringia, Brandenburg, in the lower Danube countries and in southern Russia. In Austria it is grown for birdseed production, sometimes again as grain.

With the move away from porridge food, cultivation has declined sharply.

literature

  • Hans Joachim Conert: Parey's grass book. Recognize and determine the grasses of Germany. Blackwell, Berlin / Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-8263-3327-6 .
  • Siegmund Seybold (Ed.): Schmeil-Fitschen interactive. CD-ROM, Version 1.1, Quelle & Meyer, Wiebelsheim 2002, ISBN 3-494-01327-6 .
  • Udelgard Körber-Grohne: Useful Plants in Germany from Prehistory to Today . Theiss, Stuttgart 1995 (reprint ISBN 3-933203-40-6 ) (sections cultivation and history)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Waldemar Ternes , Alfred Täufel, Lieselotte Tunger, Martin Zobel (eds.): Food lexicon . 4th, comprehensively revised edition. Behr, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-89947-165-2 . Page 1575
  2. ↑ a b c d Gunther Franke (Ed.): Useful plants of the tropics and subtropics. Volume 2: Special crop production . Ulmer, Stuttgart 1994, p. 107f. ISBN 3-8252-1768-X
  3. ↑ Rafaël Govaerts (ed.): Panicum miliaceum. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved November 21, 2016.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Udelgard Körber-Grohne: Useful plants in Germany from prehistory to today . Theiss, Stuttgart 1995 (reprint ISBN 3-933203-40-6 )
  5. ^ Wolfgang Franke: Nutzpflanzenkunde. Usable crops of temperate latitudes, subtropics and tropics. 4th edition, Thieme, Stuttgart 1989, p. 101. ISBN 3-13-530404-3
  6. ^ Karl Weinhold : Inquiry about the customs and superstitions associated with the cultivation of millet. In: Journal of the Association for Folklore , Volume 10, 1900, p. 339 f. ( Digitized version ).
  7. ↑ Giedre Motuzaite-Matuzeviciute, Richard A. Staff, Harriet V. Hunt, Xinyi Liu, Martin K. Jones: The early chronology of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) in Europe . In: Antiquity . tape 87 , no. 338 , 2013, ISSN  0003-598X , p. 1073-1085 , doi : 10.1017 / s0003598x00049875 ( cambridge.org [accessed June 6, 2017]).
  8. ↑ Soultana Maria Valamoti: Millet, the latecomer: on the tracks of Panicum miliaceum in prehistoric Greece . In: Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences . tape 8 , no. 1 , March 1, 2016, ISSN  1866-9557 , p. 51-63 , doi : 10.1007 / s12520-013-0152-5 ( springer.com [accessed June 6, 2017]).
  9. ^ Hans-Peter Stika, Andreas G. Heiss: Plant Cultivation in the Bronze Age . In: Harry Fokkens, Anthony Harding (Eds.): The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-957286-1 , pp. 348-369 , doi : 10.1093 / oxfordhb / 9780199572861.013.0019 ( oxfordhandbooks.com [accessed June 6, 2017]).
  10. ↑ Hans-Peter Stika, Andreas G. Heiss: Bronze Age Agriculture in Europe - The attempt at an overall presentation of the state of research . In: Karl-Heinz Willroth (Hrsg.): Settlements of the older Bronze Age. Contributions to settlement archeology and paleoecology of the second millennium BC in southern Scandinavia, northern Germany and the Netherlands. Workshop from April 7th to 9th 2011 in Sankelmark . Wachholtz, Neumünster 2013, ISBN 978-3-529-01581-6 , pp. 189–222 , doi : 10.13140 / 2.1.3394.0486 ( rgdoi.net [accessed June 6, 2017]).

Web links

Commons : Millet ( Panicum miliaceum )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files