Colorado is known around the world as the state for elevation, skiing and John Elway – but the Centennial State is also No. 1 in a crop favored by those on the wing.
Proso millet, a key ingredient in most birdseed, is the one crop in which Colorado leads the nation in production.
The state was No. 3 in head lettuce and sheep and lambs last year.
But when it comes to proso millet, we cannot be beat – harvesting 255,000 acres last year and generating $20.2 million for farmers in the state. More than half of the nation’s proso is produced here.
“It’s a good crop on little moisture and the type of ground we got in this area,” said Leslie Smith, a grower who is raising about 1,200 acres of proso in Fleming, east of Sterling.
“You get a good rain and you get a good crop,” he said. “It’s a crop that works with no till operations at all.”
The small-seed grass is a 90-day crop that grows well in hot, dry regions and needs little rainfall for a full bounty, said Randy Buhler, agronomist for the Colorado State University Cooperative Extension in Logan County.
“Proso has always been known as an emergency crop,” Buhler said. “If you lose your wheat crop, you could plant it and still get a crop off of your ground.”
Most of the state’s crop is grown in Washington County in northeastern Colorado.
Farmers work proso into their wheat rotations, giving them two crops in three years rather than one crop every two years.
Still, proso millet is small potatoes in Colorado’s $5.6 billion total agriculture market – accounting for less than four-tenths of 1 percent of it.
Livestock generates almost 80 percent of agriculture receipts for the state’s farmers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The top produce and field crops are corn, hay, potatoes and wheat.
Proso, however, is coveted for birdseed and preferred by sparrows, mourning doves, brown-headed cowbirds, cardinals and house finches, according to researchers at Cornell University.
“Quite a bit goes to Japan,” Buhler said. “Really fancy feathered chickens and pigeons and other songbirds like it. If they are a seed-eating bird, they really like proso. It doesn’t take any special grinding.”
Birds like to crack the hull and eat the meat inside, said Gene Perry of Perry Brothers processor in Otis.
“They will roll that in their beak and pick the hull off,” Perry said. “Some birds love it. Others pick it out and throw it on the ground.”
Millet also is being used as a gluten-free food and is being exported to Europe for cereal or to the East Coast for use in the production of mushrooms.
Millets were among the first cultivated crops in central and eastern Asia and are thought to have been brought to the United States by German immigrants for livestock feed, according to researchers.
“Our millet is a better quality, brighter and whiter,” Perry said. “Colorado millet is a nomenclature itself. Exporters prefer it.”
Researchers from Kansas are studying whether the crop can speed up the fermentation process in the production of corn-based biofuel, which would be a boon to eastern Colorado, Perry said.
“Problem with proso is, the market is so volatile,” he said. “Now it’s high because the price of corn has driven fillers up. This would give us a steady market. The acreage would shoot up.”
Staff writer Jeremy P. Meyer can be reached at 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.
What is millet?
Proso millet is an annual plant with a short growing season that needs little water and thrives in hot, dry climates.
The plant grows about 4 feet high and produces small seeds that are generally used for birdseed.
Colorado is the nation’s top producer of proso millet, and it’s the only crop in which the state is No. 1.
Colorado farmers last year harvested 255,000 acres of proso millet with an average yield of 21 bushels an acre, earning $20.2 million.
