Hybrid Pearl Millet
Pearl millet is a
high nutritive-value summer-annual forage crop,
popular among livestock producers for grazing, silage, hay, and green
chop. Pearl millet can also be utilized as an emergency forage that
regularly performs well as an economical one-year forage crop option.
This summer forage is probably the most drought resistant of the
summer grain crops. It prefers well-drained soils, and at the seedling
stage, it looks much like a corn or sorghum plant. Compared to sorghum,
it is less tolerant of water logging and flooding. Millet is a
broad term used to refer to various small-grain annual cereal and forage
grasses of the genera Echinochloa, Eleusine, Panicum, Pennisetum,
Setaria, and Sorghum, which—according to use— can be grouped into three
broad categories: wildlife or bird-seed (browntop, Japanese, and proso
millets), grain, and forage types.
Pearl millet is an upright bunch grass that tillers from the base and
has an extensive root system that provides drought tolerance. Stems are
1/2–1 inch diameter. It is a leafy plant with leaf blades that are 8–40
inches long and 1/2–3 inches wide. The ligule, or junction of leaf blade
to leaf sheath, is a fringe of hairs 0.08–0.1 inch long. The sheath has
very sparse hairs at the base of the collar and is often hairless. The
inflorescence (flower) is a single raceme—4–20 inches long— that
resembles the flower of the aquatic plant known as cattail (see
illustration below). The fruit (or caryopsis) is cylindrical, white or
pearl in color, or sometimes yellow or brown, and occasionally purple.
Yield
Dry matter production is highly affected by environmental conditions,
such as moisture and soil fertility. When planted during April and
fertilized with nitrogen, yield may range from 5,000 to 10,000 lb dry
matter/acre (Table 2).
Total yield decreases as seeding date is
delayed from earliest planting. For example, in North Central Florida,
delaying planting from late March to May is associated with a 10% yield
loss, but when planting is postponed to July, losses could be as high as
20%.
Seed yield can range from 225 to 700 lb/acre depending on
rainfall and cultivar type. Number of seed per pound ranges from 40,000
to 60,000.