Setaria pumila
| Setaria pumila | |
| Light: |  |
| Moisture: |  |
| Hardiness: | 6 |
| Soil pH: | 5.6-8.4 |
| Height: | 2' |
| Blooms: | Late Summer-Mid Fall |
| Edible Rating: |  |
| Tea: | Yes |
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Setaria pumila (common name: yellow bristle grass)
Propagation: Seed - sow early spring in a greenhouse and only just cover the seed. Germination is usually quick and good. Prick out the seedlings into individual pots as soon as they are large enough to handle and grow them on fast. Plant them out in late spring, after the last expected frosts. Whilst this is fine for small quantities, it would be an extremely labour intensive method if larger amounts were to be grown.
The seed can be sown in situ in the middle of spring though it is then later in coming into flower and may not ripen its seed in a cool summer.
Cultivation: Succeeds in any well-drained soil in full sun[1].
Range: A cosmopolitan plant.
Habitat: Waste ground, cultivated fields and lowland all over Japan[2].
Edibility: Seed - cooked[3][4]. It can be eaten as a sweet or savoury food in all the ways that rice is used, or ground into a powder and made into porridge, cakes, puddings etc[5]. The seed contains about 11.5% protein, 6% fat, 40.7% carbohydrate, 8.2% fat[6].
A dust from the fungal infection of plants is eaten[7][8].
Pollinators: Wind
Soil: Can grow in light, medium, and heavy soils.
Drainage: Prefers well drained soil.
Seed Ripens: Early Fall-Mid Fall
Flower Type: Hermaphrodite
Links
References
- ↑ Huxley, Anthony. The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening. MacMillan Press, 1992.
- ↑ Ohwi, Jisaburo. Flora of Japan. Smithsonian Institution, 1965.
- ↑ Tanaka, Tyōzaburō. Tanaka's Cyclopaedia of Edible Plants of the World. Keigaku Publishing, 1976.
- ↑ Kunkel, Günther. Plants for Human Consumption. Koeltz Scientific Books, 1984.
- ↑ Facciola, Stephen. Cornucopia - A Source Book of Edible Plants. Kampong Publications, 1990.
- ↑ Read, Bernard. Famine Foods Listed in the Chiu Huang Pen Ts'ao. Taipei Southern Materials Centre, 1977.
- ↑ Hedrick, Ulysses. Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World. Dover Publications, 1972.
- ↑ Schofield, Janice. Discovering Wild Plants.