Farmers looking for a short season crop that can be seeded in June might want to consider millet.The maturity is about 90 days and the crop is a good fit for low spots that don’t dry up in time for regular crops.Reynald Gauthier of Millet King Seeds of St. Claude, Man., said the crop could be harvested for birdseed or cut for cattle feed. It can also be used as a green manure or cover crop.Seed costs are relatively low.Gauthier said his Red Proso millet seed sells for 40 cents per pound. Seed cost works out to $12 per acre if planted at 30 lb. to the acre. Millet birdseed fetches about 10 cents per lb.“If they had 30 acres of potholes and harvested 1,500 lb. per acre, that would be 45,000 lb., which is roughly a tandem load and at 10 cents per pound, that would fetch them roughly $4,000,” Gauthier said.“Rather than let it sit and grow nothing, this is another option.”The majority of his clients use the crop for swath grazing.It is cut at 60 days, producing a feed that is 12 to 18 percent protein. It can also be cut for silage, he said.Gauthier also plans to buy a small quantity of seed this fall for his new food processing venture, targeted at people with celiac’s disease.“We’ve got some food products done with millet and we are just testing shelf life,” he said. His millet beer won second prize at the Manitoba Food Fight in Brandon, part of Manitoba Agriculture’s Capturing Opportunities conference this year.
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