''Urochloa ramosa'', (formerly ''Brachiaria ramosa'') the browntop millet or Dixie signalgrass, is an annual,

millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most millets belong to the tribe Paniceae. Millets are important crops in the Semi-arid climate, ...

grass belonging to the grass family (

Poaceae Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivate ...

). The native range of ''Urochloa ramosa'' is from Africa to tropical and subtropical Asia.

Description

It has glabrous (hairless) spikelets, are about long, the upper of each pair on a pedicel (stalk) about as long as the spikelet. The spikelets are more often slightly or distinctly puberulent and pedicels are often shorter. Plants found in Malesia and Australia always have shorter spikelets (only up to 3 mm long).

Growth

Seed germination can happen in up to 5 days and the rapidly growing crop can then be harvested in the next two months. Its fine stems and leaves allow the plant to dry sufficiently to be used as a dry hay product.

Taxonomy

It was originally published as ''Brachiaria ramosa'' in D.Oliver & auct. suc. (eds.), Fl. Trop. Afr. 9: 542 in 1919, before being renamed and published and described by botanist T.Q.Nguyen in Novosti Sist. Vyssh. Rast. 3: 13 in 1966. The

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

, ''ramosa'', is a Latin adjective meaning "branched" which describes the plant as bearing branches. The reconstructed Proto-Dravidian name for ''Brachiaria ramosa'' is *conna-l. It is named differently in Indian languages such as “korale” and “kadu-baragu” in

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

, “andakorra” and “pedda-sama” in Telugu.

Distribution

It is found in Afghanistan, Andaman Islands, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, China, Djibouti, East Himalaya, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Gulf States, Hainan, India, Ivory Coast, Java, Kenya,

Lesser Sunda Islands The Lesser Sunda Islands (, , ), now known as Nusa Tenggara Islands (, or "Southeast Islands"), are an archipelago in the Indonesian archipelago. Most of the Lesser Sunda Islands are located within the Wallacea region, except for the Bali pro ...

, Liberia, Malawi, Malaya, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Nicobar Islands, Niger, Nigeria, Northern Provinces (South Africa), Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, (island of)

Socotra Socotra, locally known as Saqatri, is a Yemeni island in the Indian Ocean. Situated between the Guardafui Channel and the Arabian Sea, it lies near major shipping routes. Socotra is the largest of the six islands in the Socotra archipelago as ...

, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya, Yemen and Zimbabwe. It has been introduced to parts of the United States (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia), South America (Peru), Africa (Madagascar,

Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...

, the island of

Réunion Réunion (; ; ; known as before 1848) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France. Part of the Mascarene Islands, it is located approximately east of the isl ...

), and parts of Australia, (

Christmas Island Christmas Island, officially the Territory of Christmas Island, is an States and territories of Australia#External territories, Australian external territory in the Indian Ocean comprising the island of the same name. It is about south o ...

, Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia). In parts of America, it is considered an invasive weed, as it has been found to reduce yield and lower quality of

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

in the southeastern United States.

Uses

In South Asia, it is traditionally cultivated as a cereal crop. It is used because it has potential to give high yield in resource-poor and fragile ecological conditions. In the southern parts of India, the grains of browntop millet from non-shattering varieties are consumed as boiled whole grain (like rice), porridge, kheer or unleavened bread and dosa. The grain is also used as a birdseed, and forage crop (in the US) for domestic animals and game animals (such as deer and rabbit) and for birds such as turkey, duck, dove, quail and pheasant. Browntop millet can represent up to 10–25% of the diet of terrestrial and water birds. Also 50% of ingested seed found in mourning dove's crops was browntop millet. ''Urochloa ramosa'' is also used to suppress root-knot nematode populations in tomato and pepper crops in south-eastern states of America. ''Urochloa ramosa'' also has the ability to accumulate significant amounts of metals such as

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

and

zinc Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...

in its shoot and root tissues making it an important plant for remediation of contaminated soils (Lakshmi et al., 2013).

Pests

It is affected by insect pests such as: *shoot flies '' Atherigona oryzae'', '' Atherigona pulla'', and '' Atherigona punctata'' *caseworm '' Parapoynx stagnalis'' *red hairy caterpillars '' Amsacta albistriga'' and '' Amsacta moorei'' Within the US, army worms ('' Mythimna unipuncta'') and grasshoppers are the common insect problems.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q21304257 Flora of West Tropical Africa Flora of West-Central Tropical Africa Flora of Northeast Tropical Africa Flora of East Tropical Africa Flora of Zimbabwe Flora of the Northern Provinces Flora of the Arabian Peninsula Flora of the Indian subcontinent Flora of Indo-China Flora of Hainan Millets Plants described in 1966 Panicoideae