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Lesson
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🌾 Botany of Small Millets

Botanical features and breeding-relevant floral traits of important small millet crops.

This lesson covers core principles and exam-focused points from this topic in plant breeding.

The grains of small millets are small in size, hence they are called small millets.

The characters of small millets are hardy, drought, resistant, with little care it grows and gives

some yield, can be grown in sub marginal lands also as a rainfed crop, mostly grown by hill

tribes.

Fox Tail Millet - _ Setaria italica _ (2n:18)

Family: Poaceae

Foxtail millet is the most important millet in India especially in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka

and parts of Maharastra. It is next in importance to Sorghum and finger millet.

Botany

Annual grass; seminal roots three followed by numerous thin adventitious roots, culms

erect, slender, internodes hollow, tillering; leaf sheath longer than internodes, ligulate; leaf blade

linear; tip acuminate; mid rib prominent. Inflorescence spike like panicle, carrying 6-12 two

flowered sub sessile spikelets each subtended by 1-3 bristles; stamens three; ovary with two long

styles ending in plumose stigma; fruit caryopsis tightly enclosed by lemma and palea.

Center of origin: East Asia

Wild relatives

Setaria italica was probably derived from S. viridis a common weed in the old world. It

seems that S. italica and Panicum miliaceum were among the first crops to be domesticated in

central eastern Asia. They were widely spread throughout Asia and Eastern Europe in pre

historic times.

Little Millet - _ Panicum sumatranse (P. miliare) _ (2n: 36)

Family: Poaceae

Botany

An annual tufted grass with slender culms, soft leaves, inflorescence a panicle with erect

hairy branches; spikelets in pairs with two glumes; floret with two lemmas, two lodicules, three

stamens and ovary with plumose stigma; fruit a caryopsis.

Centre of origin: W. Africa

Distribution : India, Sri Lanka, parts of China.

Barn Yard Millet- _ Echinochola frumentosa _ (2n: 36 and 54)

Family: Poaceae

Botany

A robust tufted annual grass; seminal roots followed by adventitious roots; stem smooth,

glabrous, producing tillers; internodes hollow; leaf blade linear, lanceolate; tip acute; margin

finely toothed. Inflorescence a panicle; spikelet two flowered, awnless, pedicellate, subtended by

bristles, two glumes; lower floret sterile with lemma and palea; upper floret hermaphrodite, five

nerved lemma and five nerved palea, two lodicules, three stamens, two distinct style with

plumose stigma. Fruit a caryopsis enclosed in white shining hardened lemma and palea.

Center of origin: E.Asia

Barnyard millet originated either from E. colona or E. crusgalli and possesses characters

intermediate between the two.

Proso Millet - _ Panicum milliaceum _ (2n: 36 & 72)

Family: Poaceae

Center of origin: Central Asia

Distribution : India, Africa, Erope, USA. China, Japan.

Botany

A shallow rooted erect annual grass, free tillering, internodes hollow, cylindrical; leaf

lamina linear lanceolate. Inflorescence a slender panicle; spikelet with two florets with two

glumes; lower floret sterile; upper floret fertile with lemma, palea, two lodicules, three stamens

and two styles with plumose stigmas; fruit a caryopsis enclosed by persistent lemma and palea.

kodo millet - Paspalum scrobiculatum (2n: 40)

Family: Poaceae

Center of origin: India

Botany

An annual tufted grass; leaves in two ranks, stiff, erect. Inflorescence a panicle; 2-8

spikelets in flattened rachis; spikelets usually in two rows; each spikelet has two florets; lower

floret sterile, upper bisexual with lemma, palea, two lodicules, three stamens and plumose

stigma; grain enclosed in hard horny persistent husk which is difficult to remove.

Summary Cheat Sheet

Quick Recall Points

  • This lesson focuses on key plant breeding concepts, terminology, and exam-relevant applications.
  • Review major definitions, classifications, and method-wise distinctions from the sections above.
  • Revise tables and examples from this lesson for fast pre-exam recall.

Exam Traps

  • Do not confuse similarly named breeding methods without checking their core selection logic.
  • Pay attention to crop-specific examples because the same principle can behave differently by species.

References

1 source • [1]

[1]

Standard Plant Breeding Class Notes (GPBR211)

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