Browntop millet belongs to the Family Poaceae, Subfamily Panicoideae, Genus Urochloa and Species Urochloa ramose L. Stopf; Panicum ramosum L. In several parts of India, brown top millet is known by local names which translate to “illegal wife of little millet [Panicum sumatrense],” reflecting its tendency to grow within fields of little millet as a mimic weed. It is also known as signal grass or Dixie signal grass and is considered as one of the rare millet. It is named differently in Indian languages as bennakki, benne akki, korale, karlakki, and kadu-baragu, branched or chaduru korale , round panicle/dundu korale in Kannada; anda korra, eduru gaddi , pala pul, Kuthiravali in Tamil; chama pothaval, varagu in Malayalam; and makra, murat in Hindi; and pedda-sama, andakorra in Telugu. Browntop millet (BTM) is small-seeded annual grass cultivated as grain crop, primarily on the marginal lands in dry areas in temperate, subtropical and tropical regions. It is increasingly receiving attention of the scientific community. Amongst different small millets, browntop millet has drawn the attention of health conscious customers very lately and it’s of high priced coarse cereals in the retail market. In India during the Neolithic age, brown-top millet was grown as a subsistence crop and used as a grain and forage. Historical evidence (archaeo-botanical researches from the Neolithic south Indian sites) indicates that the early occurrence or first domestication of BTM was during the pre-historical period. It grew on the Deccan of southern parts of India from where it traveled to other parts of the country. This millet was present in the staple-crop fields as a weed alongside other crops in southern India from beginning of the third millennium BCE. During the second millennium BCE it reached to Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. Browntop millet is a warm season annual grass that is a heavy seed producer. This millet seed is grown in a variety of soils and climates. Browntop millet is used as a wild life food plot crop, livestock summer grazing crop, for erosion control, hay production and as a food grain crop. Under ideal conditions seed will germinate within five days and forage or seed will be ready to harvest within two months time. Browntop millet is an effective nurse crop, much like oats, in stabilizing erosive hill slopes and providing cover for slower growing target species to become established. With the ability to easily reseed and that seed to remain viable in the soil profile for years, makes browntop millet an excellent regenerating food plot for wild life. It was reported that the grain yield of browntop millet without any fertilizer was only 3.95 q/ha. However, by using the combination of organic manure and inorganic fertilizer the grain yield of BTM increased to 7.38 q/ha. The cultivation of browntop is simple but processing is difficult due to the hard outer cover of the seed. As a result, farmers get only 40-50kg of rice from one quintal of browntop/korale seeds. Earlier grinding stones were used to separate the grain from the seed. Today, grinding stones have almost disappeared and korale seeds are processed in the flour mills that process finger millet. The size of korale rice is also very small and separation of stones is difficult. Hence, processing has become a bottleneck for farmers, and efforts are on to design improved processing machines. In this review article on Origin, Domestication, Taxonomy, Botanical Description, Genetics and Cytogenetics, Genetic Diversity, Breeding, Uses, Nutritional Value and Health Benefits of Browntop Millet are discussed.
