Panhandle project hopes to bring millet into the agricultural forefront

The fields have been cut and the wheat has been harvested. Now some Nebraska farmers will turn their attention to millet.

The old world grain was once considered bird seed, at least in the U.S. These days, however, it is an important—though finicky—agricultural product, used as food and in medicines, brewed into beer and cycled into bio-fuels.

Growing millet is a challenge. The season is short, the stem fragile and panhandle winds can knock down a portion of a farmer's profit on any given day. Combines purchased for wheat will destroy a millet field. Elevators may be reluctant to take on the grain, too, as producers tend to store it until prices peak.

"It is hard to get a bid on millet,” said Bill Structmeyer of Frenchman Valley Coop. “If you were to call the elevator for millet you would get an answer of 'no bid' because they may have enough contracted or the price is low."

Dipak Santra is working on this problem. The alternative crops breeding specialist for the University of Nebraska Lincoln Agriculture Laboratory near Sidney joined a program that began in 1965, looking to create stronger, more panhandle-friendly hybrids.

"The program started with doubling up different varieties, with it centralized here in the Panhandle," he explained.

Santra's research involves cross breeding proso millet to strengthen the stem. His project is also developing millet that will ripen evenly. By strengthening the stem it will also help solve problems in harvesting.

Santra is one of few people that are breeding millet in the world. Since millet is still new to the U.S. market and considered an alternative crop, research funding is difficult to come by. Millet is a diverse crop but Sanatra is not trying to make a diverse crop for the world.

"My target is western Nebraska,” he said. “I'm not trying to double up a diverse crop. I'm trying to double up a proso millet variety which can yield better than common varieties that are already here, with all of the character or quality that we need: The stem will not lodge in the wind, that all the grain is all intact in the wind after it has matured and that changes the harvest, saving time and money."

The UNL work hopes to produce millet that requires less water and withstands higher temperatures, as well.

Santra came to the U.S. from India in 2000 ,working first at Iowa Sate University with soybeans then at Washington State with wheat. He joined the UNL staff in 2008.

Millet provides about 11 percent protein by weight—close to that of wheat—and is rich in vitamin B calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium and zinc. It is also gluten free.