Following up on this item, here - in case it is of interest - is a personal perspective on sorghum's place among the millets.
Sorghum was one of those grains that I had heard about but had never encountered in the field or on a plate before going to Togo, West Africa in 1979. That was also where I first encountered "millet" as a crop and food (it was pearl millet) and fonio. There and later in Mali, I learned that pearl millet was the preferred crop on sandy soils in drier regions, although grown some in more humid climates, while sorghum worked better on heavier soils that might be subject to waterlogging. (Corn and rice were the more preferred crops in the wetter regions.) Sometimes, sorghum and pearl millet might get mixed up in farmers' seed collections, and in Togo I sometimes saw a tall sorghum plant or two amidst the towering pearl millet (the land races of the latter are not the short stemmed hybrids grown in North America). You get an impression from the seed size and the height of the plants of why they are sometimes called major millets. In the French spoken in West Africa, pearl millet was often referred to as "petit mil." Sorghum, usually called "sorgho," was also known as "gros mil." (Petit=liitle; gros=lbig.) An agriculture project promoting production of pearl millet and sorghum in central Mali that had ended shortly before my arrival there in 1983 was called "Opération Mils" (note the French "mil" in plural). I lived in two different places where fonio was an important crow - the plateau region of Togo and the Futa Jalon region of Guinea. In all my time there I did not hear fonio referred to as a millet. So from my experience there, it seemed like sorghum was a millet but fonio not, and that these days fonio is discussed as a millet, while some consider sorghum as being outside this group. Of possible interest in this discussion, I put up a couple of phylogenic charts on a user page on Wikipedia which help illustrate the position of sorghum in taxonomies with millets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:A12n/Phylogeny_of_millets DO, EL, MI, US NAMA On Tue, Jun 30, 2026 at 10:44 AM Don Osborn <[email protected]> wrote: > If you do a search on "is sorghum a millet?" you'll likely come up with a > negative response that pivots on sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) being > botanically (taxonomically) more closely related to corn than it is to > other millets. The larger botanical picture, however, is more complicated. > Also, we also know that outside of North America especially, many consider > sorghum among the millets - it was included in the International Year of > Millets (2023) and is NAMA's millet-of-the-month in June. > > What is the case for including sorghum among the millets? > > On the botanical side, I've pointed out previously that while it is true > that sorghum, like corn, is in the Andropogoneae tribe,/1 so too are adlay > (Coix lacryma-jobi) and the rare but interesting Taiwan oil millet > (Spodiopogon formosanus). Moreover, there are two other millets that are in > an entirely different sub-family of Poaceae (the botanical grass family > that includes all grains) - namely finger millet (Eleusine coracana) and > teff (Erogrostis tef). WHich is to say, that they are more outliers than > the Andropogoneae group. So, the botanical / taxonomic argument that > sorghum should not be considered a millet doesn't really hold up. If we are > to draw line between millets and not millets, it can't be solely on the > basis of taxonomic proximity./2 > > The category of "millets" is in some ways a "folk taxonomy," largely > shaped by history, culture, and language. So where does sorghum fall in > these respects? Among its common names historically have been "great > millet," "Indian millet," and "Egyptian millet" (although for the latter > two it's possibly more complicated). On the other hand, it has also been > called "Guinea corn," and one variety, "broomcorn" (the term "broomcorn > millet" as I understand it, then compares proso millet - Panicum miliaceum > - back to sorghum, based on the use obvious in the names). For some years, > I've seen sorghum and pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum / Cenchrus > americanus) grouped as "major millets" as opposed to the many "minor > millets" or "small millets" which as a general rule, have their grains in > hard hulls./3 In these respects, it seems hard to separate sorghum out from > the millets. > > In terms of production and extent of cultivation, sorghum is in a class by > itself. The volume of grain sorghum harvested is roughly twice that of all > other millets combined. On the other hand, its production is about a tenth > of that of any of the major cereal grains. > > In terms of water use, it is comparable to many of the millets - which is > to say, it needs less to produce than major cereal grains./4 > > In terms of marketing and consumer acceptance as food in North America, > sorghum faces similar challenges to those of other millets. > > The latter is, for me, the most important consideration for NAMA > continuing to include sorghum among the millets. At the same time, since > sorghum > in the US has an important, funded infrastructure for its promotion as a > crop and food, we don't need to spend as much of our limited time and > resources on promoting it. > > Ultimately, however, we don't need a debate on whether sorghum is or isn't > a millet (maybe both are true?). My personal perspective is that sorghum > and each of the other millets are individual grains that can play more > important roles in our agriculture and food cultures. The category of > millets, even if it might be a bit more fluid and even contested at its > margins, facilitates our discussion of all of them in the future of food > and ag. > > > Notes: > 1. Botanical hierarchy: … > Family > Sub-family > Tribe > Genus > Species > 2. On the other hand, the more recent inclusion by some in India of > certain pseudo-cereals - notably amaranth and buckwheat - among the millets > goes too far, in my opinion. These are in an entirely different botanical > family. Some have also used the term "pseudo-millets," but this term is > not generally accepted, and in any event, is redundant to the accepted term > of pseudo-cereals > 3. Finger millet is an interesting exception, and in some recent > literature, it is grouped among the "major millets." > 4. Proso millet and pearl millet, however, are the most adapted of all the > millets to hot and dry conditions. > > > Don Osborn, PhD > (East Lansing, MI, US) > North American Millets Alliance > -- Collab mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
