What Is Wild Rice Stem? Get to Know This Vegetable
Wild rice stem is also known as high melon, wild rice shoot, wild rice hand, wild rice stem shoot, high shoot, etc. It is a perennial root herbaceous plant of the genus Zizania in the grass family. The ancients called it “gu”, and before the Tang Dynasty it was cultivated as a grain crop. Its seed is called wild rice or carved hu, one of the “six grains” (tu, shu, ji, liang, mai, gu). Later people found that some wild rice plants, infected by smut fungus, did not head out and showed no sign of disease, while the stem kept swelling and gradually formed a spindle-shaped fleshy stem. This is the wild rice stem eaten today.
Wild rice stem has a rhizome, and the aboveground stem can produce 23 tillers, forming a clump of tiller branches. The culm is upright and robust, with adventitious roots at the base. After the main stem and tiller branches enter reproductive growth, if wild rice smut fungus parasitizes the base, they cannot grow normally and form an oval or nearly round fleshy stem. The leaves are flat, long lanceolate, with an awn-like acuminate tip and a slightly contracted or gradually narrowed base; generally the upper surface and margins are rough, the lower surface is smooth, and the midrib is raised on the back. The leaf sheath is long and thick, wrapping around each other to form a “false stem”. The flowering and fruiting period is autumn and winter; the panicle is large, and the caryopsis is cylindrical.
Wild rice stem is a warmth-loving plant. Its suitable growth temperature is 10-25°C, and it is not tolerant of cold or of high temperature and drought. In plain areas, double-season wild rice stem is mostly planted. Double-season wild rice stem has no strict requirement for day length but has high requirements for water and fertilizer conditions, and temperature is an important factor affecting stem formation. Wild rice stem has a well-developed root system and needs a lot of water. It is suitable for clay loam or loam with sufficient water sources, convenient irrigation, deep and soft soil layers, fertile soil, rich organic matter, and strong water and fertilizer retention capacity.
Wild rice stem is native to China and Southeast Asia. At present, only China and Vietnam cultivate wild rice stem as a vegetable, and China cultivated it earliest. It is distributed throughout northern and southern China, and is grown in Hebei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Fujian, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, China, Henan, Hunan, Hubei, Hainan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Heilongjiang and other places. Yuyao wild rice stem is best known in Hemudu Town, which now produces 50,000 tons of wild rice stem annually. The ten-thousand-mu pollution-free wild rice stem base in Hemudu Town has been listed successively as a Ningbo second-level vegetable base, a wild rice stem supply base for Shanghai Vegetable Group, and a Zhejiang high-quality and high-efficiency agriculture demonstration base.
Wild rice stem mainly contains protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin E, trace carotene and minerals, etc. The organic nitrogen in tender wild rice stem exists in the form of amino acids and can provide sulfur. It is delicious, has relatively high nutritional value, and is easily absorbed by the human body. However, because wild rice stem contains more oxalic acid, its calcium is not easily absorbed by the human body. Medicinally, wild rice stem clears damp-heat, resolves toxins, and promotes milk secretion. Its stigmasterol can scavenge reactive oxygen species in the body and inhibit tyrosinase activity, thereby preventing melanin formation. It can also soften the stratum corneum on the skin surface, making the skin smooth and delicate.