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Pearl Millet
Pearl Millet
How to sow pearl millet: Direct seed outdoors once soil is 20° C (broadcast, drill, rows)
Sun requirement for pearl millet: Plant in Full Sun
Pearl Millet is the most widely grown type of millet. It is a summer annual crop native to West Africa, and can tolerate harsh conditions like drought, flood, high temperature, and low soil fertility. Pearl Millet has grains that are 3-4 mm in length - they are the largest kernels of all the types of millet. Kernels can be pale yellow, gray, brown, off-white, slate blue, or purple. Pearl Millet can be grown as an ornamental, green manure, and forage crop for livestock (use dwarf varieties, which have more foliage).
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Pearl millet facts
Lifespan
Height
300cmWhat are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For pearl millet, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 12°C and a shortest growing cycle of 60 days at its best temperature, about 1080 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your pearl millet will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
How members grow pearl millet
Sunniness
Planted from
Plant pearl millet with
squash
Photos
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Pearl millet harvests
Where pearl millet grow
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Who's planted pearl millet
- GoatLady Goat Pasture · Culpeper County,...
Pearl millet harvests
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Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R.Br.
| Family / Taxonomy | Liliopsida Commelinidae Cyperales Gramineae |
|---|---|
| Optimal temperature | 25 - 35 °C |
| Absolute temperature | 12 - 40 °C |
| Killing temperature | growth: 0 °C, rest: 2 °C |
| Optimal rainfall | 400 - 900 mm/year |
| Absolute rainfall | 200 - 1700 mm/year |
| Optimal soil pH | 5.0 - 6.5 |
| Absolute soil pH | 4.5 - 8.3 |
| Crop cycle | 60 - 120 days |
| Max altitude | 1800 m |
| Life form | grass |
| Life span | annual |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | deep (>>150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium, light |
| Optimal soil fertility | moderate |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | short day (<12 hours), neutral day (12-14 hours) |
| Optimal light | very bright |
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