Why is Colorado #1 in millet?
Colorado is famous for the Rocky Mountains. But out on its dry eastern plains, farmers grow more proso millet, a small grain used in wild-bird food, than any other state. The story runs through a dry and windy land, a severe hailstorm that can wipe out the wheat, and a fast little grain that can rescue the summer.
Colorado grows more proso millet than any other state. Check the ranking in the quiz below. Colorado is also #1 on this site in ski businesses and in the share of workers who work from home; those quizzes have their own notes. This note follows the millet.
Basis: USDA NASS Quick Stats, MILLET, PROSO - PRODUCTION, MEASURED IN BU, 2024 (only states with published figures). The ski and work-from-home #1s come from this site's Census Bureau quizzes. The numbers, the full rankings and the sources are on the quiz pages.
Eastern Colorado belongs to the Central Great Plains, a region that also takes in parts of Nebraska, Kansas and Wyoming. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's research service says the first settlers there were ill-prepared for the dry and windy climate, and the crops and farming methods that worked farther east did not suit the land, so early farming went poorly. In 1907 the USDA, working with Colorado State University, set up a field station at Akron, Colorado; the town donated land for it. Over the next century the station's experiments identified the crops best suited to the region, such as winter wheat, sorghum, millet, corn and sunflower.
Who says so: USDA Agricultural Research Service (opens in a new tab)
What makes proso millet fit? A USDA-supported crop profile for Colorado says it is a short-season grass that goes from planting to harvest in one short season, and in Colorado it is usually harvested in September. Among grain crops, it needs the least water. Farmers can grow it with the same machines they already use for dryland (unwatered) winter wheat. Historically it was a replacement crop, planted when the winter wheat failed, but it later became an important part of crop rotations (the order of crops a field grows, year after year) in eastern Colorado. A bonus: growing it cuts down on dust blowing off farmland that might otherwise be left fallow (without a crop for a season).
Who says so: Crop Profile for Proso Millet in Colorado (Crop Profiles database, supported by USDA NIFA) (opens in a new tab)
Here is where the hail comes in. Winter wheat is planted in the fall and harvested the next summer, so a whole season of work can be lost in one storm. A University of Nebraska Extension guide, written with scientists from Colorado State University, other Plains universities and the USDA station at Akron, says proso millet can be planted as late as early July as a catch crop (a backup crop) to replace winter wheat lost to freezing, wind erosion, drought or hail. It is frequently planted where a severe hailstorm has destroyed the wheat, and those storms usually come after mid-May. The guide also says proso is probably better suited than most crops to “poor” land, with soils that hold less water and fewer nutrients.
Proso millet did not start out in America. University of Nebraska–Lincoln researchers write that it was first brought to the United States by European immigrants, landing on the Atlantic coast in 1875, and it is now grown mostly in the Great Plains, with Colorado, Nebraska and South Dakota growing most of the country's crop. In the United States most of it goes to the bird-feed market.
Who says so: University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Panhandle Research, Extension and Education Center (opens in a new tab)
Could Colorado's bird seed end up on more dinner plates? The same University of Nebraska–Lincoln researchers point out that millets are naturally gluten-free and rich in fiber, and they expect demand for proso millet may increase after the United Nations' International Year of Millets in 2023. They also list what holds it back: prices that jump up and down, weak crop insurance, a shortage of high-yielding varieties, and not enough products made from millet. In 2024 their lab began testing whether proso millet might be a more sustainable crop than corn, by measuring a greenhouse gas (nitrous oxide) given off by fields of each.
Who says so: University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Panhandle Research, Extension and Education Center (opens in a new tab)
Note: a “theory”, “folklore” or “outlook” is not settled fact. Always check who is saying it.
📊 Sources for the rankings mentioned in this note (links to the original data and retrieval dates) are on each quiz page below.