Where To Buy Broom Corn
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However, if you consider the number of people needing brooms before electricity came along, you can envision a need for an alternative. Large acreages were planted in the 1830s, and for several decades more, as the popularity of broom corn production, along with the making of brooms, moved west.
As far as weeding goes, broom corn plants get off to a slow start, then surpass anything that might get in their way. Hardly any weeding is necessary. In the case of no-dig gardening, none at all. Especially if you supply the patches of broom corn with extra mulch before they grow up (when they are about knee-high).
As previously noted, be sure to plant your broom corn seeds once all danger of frost is passed. Plant in a sunny location in an area of the garden that was previously supplied with well-rotted manure.
Some gardeners feel that broom corn is best to harvest when the plant is in flower. Others wait for the first seeds to form and harvest straight away. While still others, us included, choose to wait until the seeds are nearly mature and nothing is wasted.
This unique grass is one of my all time favorites to grow and cut. The deep green and black tipped seed heads arch over from strong stems, resembling miniature, drooping broomcorn. Their elegantly draped, tassel-like blooms look amazing in late summer and autumn bouquets, producing abundantly for many weeks from one planting.
Broomcorn (Sorghum vulgare) is not actually corn, but is instead related to the sorghums used for grain and syrup (Sorghum bicolor). Broomcorn has a coarse, fibrous seed head that has been used to make various types of brooms and brushes for several hundred years.
While there are still artisans creating these natural brooms today, this crop is now more commonly used to make decorative items, such as wreaths, swags, floral arrangements, baskets, and autumn displays. It takes about 60 sprays (heads) to make a broom, but wreaths and dried arrangements require only a few plants. Broomcorn is available in natural colors, as well as purple and various fall colors.
Using foxtail millet as a representative of the genome organization of two ancestral diploid genomes in broomcorn millet, we are able to study the gene loss and retentions following tetraploidization in broomcorn millet29. We identified 19,609 genes in foxtail millet (56.7% of total genes in Yugu1) that were syntenic with at least one subgenome in broomcorn millet (Supplementary Table 8). In consistent with a nearly double number of genes in broomcorn millet (63,671) compared with foxtail millet (34,584), we found the majority (16,884, 86.2%) of syntenic genes in foxtail millet have two homologous copies retained in broomcorn millet (Fig. 2 and Supplementary Table 8). The remaining 2725 (13.8%) genes in foxtail millet have only one syntenic homolog in broomcorn millet. It was contrasting with the drastic gene loss after WGD reported in maize29 and soybean34, which may be due to the more recent WGD in broomcorn millet as compared with soybean and maize (discussed later). Also, the two subgenomes of broomcorn millet shown approximately the same level of gene retentions (Fig. 2), as opposed to the bias of gene fractionation in maize29 and Brassica rapa35.
Gene loss and retentions in broomcorn millet. a sliding window approach with window size of 100 syntenic genes and step size of 10 syntenic genes was used to show the percentage of retained genes in subgenome1 (red), subgenome2 (blue), and both (yellow) in broomcorn millet using foxtail millet (ai) as a reference. In total, there were 19,609 genes in foxtail millet that were syntenic with at least one subgenome in broomcorn millet, among which 16,884 (86.2%) syntenic genes have two homologous copies retained in broomcorn millet. Source Data are provided as a Source Data file
Mining the genome of broomcorn millet uncovered the genes potentially involved in both biotic and abiotic stress resistance in broomcorn millet. In total, we identified 493 genes containing NB-ARC domain (Pfam: PF00931) that may be involved in disease resistance43, of which 20 genes (seven gene families) were specific in broomcorn millet. In consistent with that in pearl millet30, the distribution of NB-ARC genes was highly biased in broomcorn millet, with gene clusters observed at chromosome ends of pm13 and pm17 (Supplementary Fig. 9). As a crop with extremely strong drought tolerance, we also identified 15 ABA or WDS (water-deficiency stress) responsive genes (Pfam: PF02496)44 in broomcorn millet. Interestingly, four of these ABA genes were constitutively expressed with relatively high expressional level across all the samples we examined, even for the tissues or stages without salt or drought treatment (Supplementary Fig. 10). Further experimental validations are needed to elucidate the functional role of these genes in the drought tolerance of broomcorn millet.
Similar to other cereal crops23,30, LTR retrotransposon (37.1%), especially the Gypsy superfamily (31.4%), constituted the majority of repeat elements in broomcorn millet. Gypsy elements were highly enriched around centromeric regions in both broomcorn millet and foxtail millet. While, the distribution of Copia elements was contrasting between these two species, especially around the centromeric regions (Supplementary Figure 5). There were also large differences of Gypsy-to-Copia ratio among the major crops in Paniceae, with the highest of 7.16 in broomcorn millet, followed by foxtail millet (3.9), sorghum (3.7), pearl millet (2.24), and lowest in maize (2.0). To explain these differences, we dated the activity of both Gypsy and Copia elements in these crops. We found very recent bursts of Gypsy elements in both maize and sorghum, followed by the bursts of other three species that were all within 1 Mya (Fig. 3a). The amplifications of Copia elements were also very recent in foxtail millet, sorghum, and maize (
The activity of LTR retrotransposons in Paniceae. The insertion time of Gypsy (a) and Copia (b) superfamilies were calculated in broomcorn millet (P. miliaceum), foxtail millet (S. italica), pearl millet (P. glaucum), sorghum (S. bicolor), and maize (Z. mays), respectively
Previous studies have established the phylogeny in the grass subfamily Panicoideae, although the genetic information may be limited to have an exact estimation of the evolutionary timeline23,50. Furthermore, as a model species in Paniceae, the timing of the tetraploidization in the lineage of broomcorn millet remained unresolved. By taking advantage of the high-quality assembly of broomcorn millet in this study, in combination with the newly published genomes of pearl millet30 and Dichanthelium oligosanthes51, we were able to reconstruct the phylogeny in Paniceae (Fig. 4). We firstly estimated the Ks (synonymous substitution rate) of orthologous gene pairs between broomcorn millet and foxtail millet, and the peak of Ks (0.162) nearly coincided with the peak between sorghum and maize (0.152), which was consistent with the inference that the lineages between broomcorn millet and foxtail millet diverged 13.1 Mya23, slightly earlier than that between sorghum and maize (11.9 Mya)52. Phylogenetic data supported Dichanthelium as a distinct genus in Paniceae51, while the peak of Ks between Dichanthelium oligosanthes and foxtail millet (0.177, 14.3 Mya) nearly colocalized with that between broomcorn millet and foxtail millet, indicating a close split of the progenitors among these three species (Fig. 4a). The divergency between foxtail millet and pearl millet was more recent, with the peak of Ks (0.121) corresponded to 9.81 Mya, slightly older than a previous estimation of 8.3 Mya23. Finally, the Andropogoneae and Paniceae shared a common ancestor before 23.5 Mya, as revealed by the peak of Ks between foxtail millet and sorghum (0.286) and that between broomcorn millet and sorghum (0.295).
The phylogeny of Paniceae. a Ks distribution of orthologous and paralogous genes in Paniceae. We further confirmed two WGD events in foxtail millet (b) and broomcorn millet (c), with the paralogous genes in green circles referred to the WGD shared by all grass, and the paralogous genes in orange circles referred to lineage-specific tetraploidization in broomcorn millet. d The phylogeny of Paniceae inferred from Ks distributions. The timeline was calculated based on the divergence between sorghum and maize (Ks 0.152, 11.9 Mya). The WGD events were marked by stars. Source Data of Fig. 4a are provided as a Source Data file
The availability of this genome will no doubt facilitate the comparative genomic researches between Panicum and other crops. Interestingly, as a tetraploid crop, the biomass of broomcorn millet is unexpectedly low, especially when compared with its close relative energy crop switchgrass. It was inferred that two independent tetraploidization events happened in these two close relatives23. Further comparative genomic analysis will eventually uncover the genetic basis of phenotype difference between these two closely related tetraploid species in the future.
To identify the duplicated genes in broomcorn millet, we aligned the representative protein of each gene from Longmi4 by blastp (-e 1e-10 -b 5 -v 5 -m 8 -o -a 8), then classified the type of duplicated genes by MCScanX ( ) with default parameters. To analyze the extent of gene loss and retentions in broomcorn millet, we used Coge pipeline ( ) and blast the CDS of broomcorn millet against foxtail millet by Last, then used DAGchainer and QuotaAlign to find and merge syntenic blocks. Fractionation analysis was further applied by setting the syntenic depth to 2-to-1 between broomcorn millet and foxtail millet. A sliding window approach with window size of 100 syntenic genes and step size of 10 genes were used to show the proportion of retained genes in broomcorn millet. 59ce067264