Aussie Finch Forum

Hi all

Is there a "Best / Prefered" type of millet or bird seed to grow as a crop for half ripe seed.

I don't have a nice farmer that will grow half ripe seed here, so thought to try plant and harvest some myself. In the past I've have the odd seed of white and Jap millet come up. The Jap got moldy quickly, and I had to turf it, but see you can freeze them immediately so this will solve a storage issue.

Any suggestions for me to try?

My personal preference for what type of seed to grow for greenseed is White Millet.
Harvest the heads when just ripe.Make sure they are dry on the outside if not sure put them in the sun for about 10min.
You can then bag them and freeze then and there.They will keep for ages,simply remove them from their plastic freezer bag and feed out.I doubt if you will need to remove the old deseeded heads as the birds will have used them for nesting material as well.

Thanks for that EORix. I have plenty of the white millet seeds and will put them to good use! Had I known a year ago I could freeze them I would have ploughed the back yard up!

I've just planted some white millet and red pannicum too. Birds seem to love both at the half ripe stage.

now that my quail are gone i have noticed a large amount of spilt seed has sprouted at the base of the birds feeding platform. the quail must have been eating the sprouted seed before but obviously the finches have let it go. i'm figuring i'll leave it and hope it grows!