Key Technical Points for Seed Selection and Purification-Rejuvenation of Water Bamboo (Zizania latifolia)
When selecting seeds for planting water bamboo, the "three selections" are generally carried out, namely primary selection, re-selection and fine selection. Six to seven days before the autumn water bamboo harvest, the primary selection is carried out. The method is to select plants with medium height, large fleshy stems, flat stalks, long leaf sheaths, and uniform, neat growth, matching the variety's characteristics, as seed plants. During the water bamboo harvest period, the re-selected plants are those from which gray water bamboo and male...
1. Instability of varietal characteristicsThe formation of water bamboo (wild rice stem) is due to the parasitic smut fungus in the water bamboo plant. Its mycelium, as the plant grows, stimulates the floral stem tissue on the shortened stems of the main stem and early tillers when the plant bolts in early summer or autumn, through the metabolite indoleacetic acid produced by the mycelium. The meristem cells at the basal 2-7 nodes proliferate and expand into plump, tender fleshy stems (fungal galls), which are the edible water bamboo. Because of the symbiotic relationship with the smut fungus, water bamboo exhibits instability of varietal characteristics, which is very different from other asexually propagated crops. Seed selection and removal of off-types and inferior plants must be carried out every year to maintain its excellent varietal characteristics.
Select plants from the current year that are tender in texture, white in color, round in shape, early to market, high-yielding, strong in varietal characteristics, concentrated in marketing period, possessing the excellent traits of this variety, bearing many water bamboo shoots, and free of male water bamboo and gray water bamboo. The specific method is:
At the early stage of shoot formation, survey the entire field. If clumps are found that grow particularly tall but bear no shoots, insert a branch as a marker, and after the harvest is finished, dig them out promptly together with the roots and underground stems, because these clumps have already mutated, and are either "male water bamboo" or late-maturing. During the harvest, if fleshy stems are found to be obviously short and small, and upon peeling open and snapping the fleshy stem it is found to be "gray" water bamboo, markers should also be made at any time, or for clumps with thin and small water bamboo, they should all be thoroughly dug out after the harvest is finished.
2. On the basis of removing off-types and inferior plants, if during the harvest it is found that most tillers of an entire clump grow uniformly, bear shoots early, have a concentrated shoot-bearing period, have plump, white and tender shoot flesh, conform to the variety's characteristics, are free of male water bamboo and gray water bamboo, have low shoot-bearing nodes, and relatively high yield, then it is taken as a selected seed plant, and after the harvest is finished it is retained as seed stock for the following year.