Wild Australian grain could be a future food

University of Queensland researchers are undertaking a plant genetics study on wild millet from outback Australia’s Channel Country, hoping that it could help feed the world as climate change impacts established grain crops.

Rahul Chandora, PhD candidate and Global Change Scholar at the Queensland Alliance of Agriculture and Food Innovation, is working with the Centre of Excellence for Plant Success and Mithaka Corporation to analyse the genome of Echinochloa turneriana or Channel millet.

According to Chandora, Channel millet grows in the border region between Queensland, the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales.

“Millet has great potential to diversify our traditional diet as it’s highly nutritious, highly adaptive, climate-resilient and gluten-free,” he said.

“Millets are cultivated on all continents, particularly in India and Africa, but use of the crop is still confined to Indigenous communities — we want to see it become mainstream.”

The plant genetics study is being undertaken in collaboration with an archaeological project.

Chandora said Channel millet may have once been an important food for the Mithaka people of central Australia, something which his research and a project called Testing the Dark Emu hypothesis could confirm.

Analysing the genome of wild Channel millet can help evaluate its past use and determine its future potential.

“Domesticated millet species have lower yields than other cereals and production is affected by issues like lodging, seed shattering and seed size.

“If we can find out more about Channel millet’s genetics, we can identify favourable traits and use gene editing technology to rapidly domesticate it.

“We hope then to expand the gene pool of farmed millet and eventually shift our reliance from cereals like rice, wheat and maize,” Chandora said.

The research team will also look into the conservation and management of Channel millet. As a wild species, it will need to be conserved in its natural habitat and collected and stored in seed banks as well.

According to Chandora, climate change could lead to genetic resources like this eroding very quickly.

New crops need to be found to meet the nutritional needs of the world’s rapidly growing population.

The United Nations has recognised the potential of the crop and declared 2023 the International Year of Millets.