Proso Millet: Quick-Maturing Grain for Dry Land and Wildlife Mixes

0:00 So proso millet is more of a grain type millet than it is a forage millet. It's widely grown in western Nebraska, eastern Colorado.

0:09 Very drought tolerant but it's harvested mostly for the grain for the bird seed industry and now even for the human consumption industry.

0:18 Dale tell us a little bit more about this proso millet, some of its characteristics and when and where you'd use it.

0:25 Well a couple of real advantages that proso millet has as a grain crop—it's only about 60 days from planting to harvest, so you've got a really quick turnaround.

0:34 Turnaround from planting to harvest. Its water use efficiency is just tremendous.

0:43 The leaves have little fuzzy hairs on them that slow wind speed at the leaf surface that reduces transpiration and so you get this really drought.

0:54 Efficient plant and it will convert like for example sorghum grain sorghum for grain is about.

1:15 Than sorghum at producing grain and it produces it very early. Now it is very limited on top end yield so it's not suited to.

1:25 You know better rain fed or irrigated environments except maybe as a double crop. But where it really works well is in mixes.

1:35 Because it matures seeds so early it really has some good upland game bird benefits. You put a, I mean even just a fraction of.

1:45 A pound of proso millet in a big tall growing mix and you've got seed in 45 to 60 days, and birds are benefiting from that point on.