Digitaria milanjiana
Digitaria milanjiana
Safety & Hazards
None known
Cultivation Details
A plant of the tropics and subtropics, where it is found at elevations up to 2,000 metres. It grows best in areas where annual daytime temperatures are within the range 22 - 28°c, but can tolerate 8 - 35°c[1]. Top growth is killed by mild frost, but the plant will often survive and regrow from the base[2]. It prefers a mean annual rainfall in the range 600 - 800mm, but tolerates 375 - 1,700mm and succeeds both in areas with a dry season and with all year rainfall[1]. Requires a sunny position[1]. Grows best in a fertile sandy or sandy loam soil, but succeeds in most soils that are well-drained, including those of low fertility[1, 3]. Established plants are very drought tolerant[2, 1]. Prefers a pH in the range 4.5 - 7, tolerating 4 - 8[1]. Plants can flower after 79 - 96 days at a daylength of 14 hours and in 132 - 151 days at 11 hours[1]. Plants are severely affected by fire[1]. Dry matter yields may be between 5 - 25 tonnes per hectare[1].
Propagation
Seed - freshly harvested seed is dormant, with ecotypes from high rainfall areas having a short dormancy and ecotypes from low rainfall having an extended dormancy. Germination improves with 5 months or more of storage. Experimentally, dormancy can be broken by removing the palea and lemma from around the caryopsis[2]. Cite as: Tropical Plants Database, Ken Fern. tropical.theferns.info. 2026-02-20. <tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Digitaria+milanjiana>
Pollinators
Wind
References
- [1]Ecocrop — http://ecocrop.fao.org/ecocrop/srv/en/home ↩︎Basic information on a wide range of useful plants, plus details of environmental needs where available.
- [2]Tropical Forages — http://www.tropicalforages.info/key/Forages/Media/Html/index.htm ↩︎Mainly focussed on forage plants, the site gives a lot of information on the plant, with a good botanical description, details of cultivation, plant uses and a good selection of photographs.
- [3]Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden. Volume 55 — Missouri Botanical Garden · 1968 · http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org ↩︎Contains, amongst other things, a taxonomic treatment of the Phytolaccaceae and part of the flora of Panama. Can be downloaded from the Internet.