Finger millet (ragi)
Eleusine coracana
Poaceae
East African highlands (Ethiopia / Uganda); brought to India some 3,000–4,000 years ago and grown here ever since
9.0000° N, 38.5000° E · Ethiopian highlands
1.4000° N, 32.6000° E · Uganda highlands
15.0000° N, 77.0000° E · Southern Deccan, India
A tufted annual grass, 60–120 cm tall, whose seed head splits into four to nine curved spikes like the fingers of a hand — hence the English name. The seeds are tiny, 1–2 mm, brick-red to dark brown, with a thin coat that carries most of the grain's calcium and fibre. Ragi is never polished; the whole seed is ground to flour for sangati, roti, java (porridge) and malt.
How it grows
Ragi is the millet of hard land. It grows on shallow red soils where rice would fail, tolerates drought once established, and needs about 100–120 days from sowing to harvest. In Telangana and neighbouring Rayalaseema it is sown with the monsoon in June–July, either broadcast or transplanted from a nursery at three weeks — transplanting gives stronger plants and easier weeding. It wants one good weeding at three weeks and little else. The heads turn from green to brown in October–November. The grain stores for years without insect damage, which is why ragi was the famine reserve in every village.
Grow at home
1. Ragi needs ground, not a small pot — a raised bed or a 40 cm-deep container at least.
2. Sow seed from a farm supply shop (kitchen ragi is often heat-treated) in June, thinly, 1 cm deep; thin the seedlings to 15 cm apart at three weeks.
3. Water only in dry spells; ragi rots in wet soil.
4. In about three months the heads bend and brown.
5. Cut the heads with 10 cm of stalk, dry in the sun for a week, rub between the palms to free the grain.
Harvest
Cut the ear heads when they are brown and the grain is hard — usually late October to November. Dry the heads on a clean floor for five to seven days, then thresh by beating or treading and winnow in a breeze. Dry the grain two more days. Stored whole in a dry bin it keeps for three to five years; once milled, the flour should be used within a month, since the oil in the bran turns rancid.
Lore
In Telangana villages ragi was called the poor man's grain and the farmer's strength in the same breath: a sangati ball at dawn was said to carry a man through a day at the plough. Grandmothers give ragi java (porridge) to nursing mothers and to babies at weaning, and ragi malt to the old. In Karnataka, where it is mudde, it is a matter of regional pride. These are family and village practices, told to us by elders in Suryapet and Nalgonda; the calcium in the grain is measured by ICMR-NIN, but the strength stories are tradition.