Proso Millet

Proso millet, Panicum miliaceum, is a grain crop grown for both human food and animal feed, also known as broomcorn millet, common millet or hog millet. It is a tetraploid grass formed from a wide hybridization, with one subgenome traced to the wild grass Panicum capillare and the other to an unidentified diploid ancestor. Archaeological evidence places its domestication at roughly 10,000 years before present in northern China, with the earliest confirmed remains from the Cishan site dated to around 8000 BCE; its very short growing season, as little as 60 days to grain in some varieties, is thought to have helped semi-nomadic groups first take up agriculture. It is grown today across northern China, India, Nepal, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Middle East, Turkey, Romania and the American Great Plains, where Colorado, Nebraska and South Dakota lead United States production.