Summer Forage Millet Seed

It can be, if there's enough moisture to carry the crop. Shirohie Millet is a fast-growing crop for summer rainfall events, suited to areas with 300 mm or more of rainfall, and is sown once soil reaches 14°C. It does best where there's good stored soil moisture or a couple of follow-up summer rains. Sow promptly into moist soil, ideally ground kept weed-free so it held that moisture. It isn't frost tolerant, so treat it as summer to early autumn feed.

We recommend 10 to 15 kg/ha of Shirohie Millet, sown 3 to 4 cm deep and lightly rolled afterwards for good seed-to-soil contact. Sow into moist soil once it reaches 14°C or more, in spring or summer. Millet responds well to fertiliser. As a guide, a 2.5 t/ha crop needs about 30 kg/ha nitrogen, 8 kg/ha phosphorus and 30 kg/ha potassium, plus trace elements, to establish well, with more fertiliser after each grazing.

Millet runs to head under stress or high temperatures, and feed quality drops once it does. Grazing management is the main tool: graze at 20 to 30 cm for the best feed quality (it can be grazed up to 50 cm), and rotate or strip graze to keep plants leafy. Apply fertiliser after each grazing and leave around 10 cm of stubble for strong regrowth. Managed this way, Shirohie Millet keeps growing into late summer and early autumn.

Shirohie Millet carries no prussic acid (cyanide) risk, one of its big advantages over forage sorghum. That doesn't make it risk-free. Millet can accumulate nitrate, especially after heavy nitrogen or when growth stalls in cloudy or dry weather, and it can cause photosensitisation when stressed plants are grazed. Avoid grazing badly stressed crops, don't turn hungry stock in, provide roughage, and call your vet if you see skin reddening, laboured breathing or staggering.

Shirohie Millet is a good fit. It can be sown on lighter soils than forage sorghum and suits sands through to heavy soils, though it's best adapted to fertile loams and heavy cracking clays. It needs 300 mm or more of rainfall and a soil pH (CaCl2) of 5.0 or above. On sandier ground, nutrition matters: millet responds well to fertiliser, so use a starter fertiliser at sowing and top up after each grazing to keep it productive.

Shirohie Millet has some salt tolerance, so it can handle mildly saline ground. It is not tolerant of waterlogging or frost, though, so keep it off salt scalds that sit wet. For land that is both salty and waterlogged, a perennial saltland grass such as Puccinellia is the better long-term option. Use millet on the drier, mildly affected parts of the paddock, sown into warm, moist soil at 10 to 15 kg/ha.

Once plants are well anchored, usually around 5 to 6 weeks. Do a pull test: if stock could pull plants out by the roots, wait. Shirohie Millet should be 20 to 30 cm tall at the first grazing, and that first grazing should be light. After that, graze about every 3 to 4 weeks depending on growth, rotating or strip grazing so the crop can recover. Millet recovers more slowly after grazing than forage sorghum, so don't graze it too hard.

Choose millet for earlier, safer feed and sorghum for bulk. Shirohie Millet can be sown earlier, once soil reaches 14°C rather than the 16°C sorghum needs, can be grazed sooner, carries no prussic acid risk and handles lighter soils. The trade-off is that its total yield over the season is much lower than forage sorghum and it recovers more slowly after grazing. On heavy soils with good moisture, Bounty Forage Sorghum grows more feed, provided you manage its prussic acid risk.

Not always, if the soil is still warm and moist. Shirohie Millet needs soil at 14°C or more and can be grazed from about 5 to 6 weeks, so a late sowing after summer rain can still give a quick feed. The window is short, though. It grows into late summer and early autumn, is killed by frost, and late crops in hot, dry spells tend to run to head sooner. Plan to graze it early and often, and have your autumn feed sorted behind it.

Yes. Shirohie Millet is suited to grazing, hay and silage. For the best quality, cut it while it's leafy and before it runs to head, as feed value drops once plants head out under heat or stress. Fertilise after each cut to keep regrowth coming, and leave enough stubble for it to recover. Nitrate can carry over into hay and silage from crops that were heavily fertilised or stressed, so get a feed test if you're unsure.