''Echinochloa esculenta'' is a species of grass in the family Poaceae. It is referred to by the common names Japanese barnyard millet or Japanese millet, is a species of ''

Echinochloa ''Echinochloa'' is a very widespread genus of plants in the grass family and tribe Paniceae. Some of the species are known by the common names barnyard grass or cockspur grass. Some of the species within this genus are millets that are grown ...

'' that is cultivated on a small scale in

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

, Japan, China and

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republi ...

, both as a food and for animal

fodder Fodder (), also called provender (), is any agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock, such as cattle, rabbits, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. "Fodder" refers particularly to food given to the animals (including ...

. It is grown in areas where the land is unsuitable or the climate too cool for paddy rice cultivation. However, the development of rice varieties that can withstand cold has led to a sharp decline in the cultivation of Japanese barnyard millet, in favor of rice. The earliest records of the domesticated form date to 2000 BC from the

Jōmon period The is the time in Japanese history, traditionally dated between 6,000–300 BCE, during which Japan was inhabited by a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united through a common Jōmon culture, which reached a ...

of Japan. Japanese barnyard millet was

domesticated Domestication is a sustained multi-generational relationship in which humans assume a significant degree of control over the reproduction and care of another group of organisms to secure a more predictable supply of resources from that group. A ...

from ''

Echinochloa crus-galli ''Echinochloa crus-galli'' is a type of wild grass originating from tropical Asia that was formerly classified as a type of panicum grass. It is commonly known as cockspur (or cockspur grass), barnyard millet, Japanese millet, water grass, common ...

''. As is common for grain domestication, it underwent grain enlargement. That part of the process took one to two thousand years, occurring in Japan.

Etymology

Leiden University Library - Seikei Zusetsu vol

''Echinochloa'' is derived from

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and means 'hedgehog-grass'.Gledhill, David (2008). "The Names of Plants". Cambridge University Press. (hardback), (paperback). p 149, 158 ''Esculenta'' means ‘fit to eat’, ‘edible

y humans Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or seventh ...

��, or ‘full of food'.

References

Millets esculenta Taxa named by Alexander Braun Cereals {{Panicoideae-stub

Etymology

See also

References