Foxtail millet

For wild foxtail millet, see Setaria viridis.

Foxtail millet
Immature seedhead
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Clade: Commelinids
Order: Poales
Family: Poaceae
Subfamily: Panicoideae
Genus: Setaria
Species:
S. italica
Binomial name
Setaria italica
(L.) P. Beauvois
Synonyms

See § Synonyms

Foxtail millet (Setaria italica) seeds, India.

Foxtail millet, scientific name Setaria italica (synonym Panicum italicum L.), is an annual grass grown for human food. It is the second-most widely planted species of millet, and the most grown millet species in Asia. The oldest evidence of foxtail millet cultivation was found along the ancient course of the Yellow River in Cishan, China, carbon dated to be from around 8,000 years before present.[1][2][3] Foxtail millet has also been grown in India since antiquity.[citation needed]

Other names for the species include dwarf setaria, foxtail bristle-grass, giant setaria, green foxtail, Italian millet, German millet, and Hungarian millet.[4][5]

  1. ^ Houyuan Lu; et al. (2009), Earliest domestication of common millet (Panicum miliaceum) in East Asia extended to 10,000 years ago, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Our analytical results of both phytoliths and biomolecular components have established that the earliest cereal remains stored in the Cishan Neolithic sites, during ca. 10,300–8,700 cal yr BP, are not foxtail millet, but only common millet. After 8,700 cal yr BP, the grain crops gradually contained 0.4–2.8% foxtail millet .
  2. ^ Ian S Hornsey (2012). Alcohol and its Role in the Evolution of Human Society. pp. 254–256 (chapter 4.7.3).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Purugganan-Fuller-2009 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Setaria italica". Germplasm Resources Information Network. Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved 7 January 2014.
  5. ^ BSBI List 2007 (xls). Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. Archived from the original (xls) on 2015-06-26. Retrieved 2014-10-17.