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10: Cereals

Digitaria cruciata (Nees ex Steudel) A. Camus

GRAMINEAE

Panicum cruciatum Nees ex Steudel, Paspalum sanguinale Lamk var. cruciatum J.D. Hooker.

Raishan (En, India). Vietnam: t[us] ch[if]nh ch[es]o.

Himalaya region, Khasi Hills in Assam (India), southern China and northern Vietnam (possibly also in northern Burma (Myanmar)). Cultivated on a small scale in the Khasi Hills.

The grain is eaten as a cereal and its glutinous flour is used to make bread or porridge. It is sometimes mixed with rice or other cereals. Fresh and dried wild plants and the straw of the cultivated types are an important all-season forage, much relished by cattle.

Annual grass with prostrate to decumbent, branched culms rooting at the nodes, up to 130 cm long but usually much shorter. Leaf blade linear, up to 21 cm 1 cm, scabrid, glabrous to hairy. Inflorescence consisting of 2—10 racemes arranged paired or subwhorled on a central axis 1—4 cm long; racemes up to 18 cm long, reflexed at maturity; spikelet ellipsoidal, about 3 mm 1 mm, pale or purplish pale, consisting of two florets, the lower one sterile and the upper one bisexual. Caryopsis tightly enclosed by the chartaceous lemma and palea. The wild form (var. cruciata) is common and widespread throughout the mountain area in open sites between 2000—3000 m altitude. The cultivated form (var. esculenta Bor, preferably classified as cv. group Esculenta) has much longer racemes and the grain does not shatter easily; it is only cultivated in the Khasi Hills of Assam (in 1952 about 40 ha). It is intercropped with maize or vegetables or as a secondary crop following Irish potato. It has a growth cycle of about 4 months. About 1 month before harvesting the culms are tied together. At harvest the grains are rubbed off by hand, dried and stored. Grain yield is about 800 kg/ha. To prepare the grain for food the amount required is dried over a fire, pounded in a mortar and winnowed.
Digitaria compacta Veldkamp, which has similar uses, also occurs in the same area.

[2]Bor, N.L., 1956. The genus Digitaria Heist. in India and Burma. Webbia 11: 301–367.
[3]Bor, N.L., 1960. The grasses of Burma, Ceylon, India and Pakistan (excluding Bambuseae). Pergamon Press, Oxford, United Kingdom. 767 pp.
[6]Cissé, I.B., 1975. La culture de fonio et quelques aspects écophysiologiques de la plante [The cultivation of fonio and some ecophysiological aspects of the plant]. Section de Phytotechnie Tropicale, Université Agronomique, Wageningen, Pays-Bas. 72 pp.
[14]Haq, N. & Dania Ogbe, F.M., 1995. Fonio (Digitaria exilis and D. iburua). In: Williams, J.T. (Editor): Underutilized crops – Cereals and pseudocereals. Chapman and Hall, London, United Kingdom. pp. 225–245.
[16]Henrard, J.T., 1950. Monograph of the genus Digitaria. Universitaire Pers, Leiden, the Netherlands. 999 pp.
[20]Mansfeld, R., 1986. Verzeichnis landwirtschaftlicher und gärtnerischer Kulturpflanzen (ohne Zierpflanzen) [Register of agricultural and horticultural plants in cultivation (without ornamentals)]. Schultze-Motel, J. et al., Editors 2nd edition, 4 Volumes. Springer Verlag, Berlin, Germany. 1998 pp.
[25]Portères, R., 1957. Céréales mineures du genre Digitaria dans l'Inde [Minor cereals of the genus Digitaria in India]. Journal d'Agriculture Tropicale et de Botanique Appliquée 4: 106–107.
[32]Singh, H.B. & Arora, R.K., 1972. Raishan (Digitaria sp.): a minor millet of the Khasi Hills, India. Economic Botany 26: 376–380.
[34]Smartt, J. & Simmonds, N.W. (Editors), 1995. Evolution of crop plants. 2nd edition. Longman Scientific & Technical, Harlow, United Kingdom. 531 pp.
[36]Veldkamp, J.F., 1973. A revision of Digitaria Haller (Gramineae) in Malesia. Notes on Malesian grasses VI. Blumea 21: 1–80.

H.N. van der Hoek & P.C.M. Jansen

van der Hoek, H.N. & Jansen, P.C.M., 1996. Digitaria cruciata (Nees ex Steudel) A. Camus. In: Grubben, G.J.H. & Partohardjono, S. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 10: Cereals. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea