Champa rice is a quick-maturing, drought resistant

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...

that can allow two

harvests Harvesting is the process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper. On smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most labor- ...

of sixty days each per

growing season A season is a division of the year marked by changes in weather, ecology, and the amount of daylight. The growing season is that portion of the year in which local conditions (i.e. rainfall, temperature, daylight) permit normal plant growth. Whi ...

. Champa rice is from the aus sub-population, which shares similarities with both the japonica and the indica rice varieties. Likely originating from

Eastern India East India is a List of regions of India, region of India consisting of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal and also the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The region roughly corresponds to the histo ...

, champa rice was introduced into the

Champa Kingdom Champa ( Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ; km, ចាម្ប៉ា; vi, Chiêm Thành or ) were a collection of independent Cham polities that extended across the coast of what is contemporary central and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd ...

from the

Vietnamese Empire The Empire of Vietnam (; Literary Chinese and Contemporary Japanese: ; Modern Japanese: ja, ベトナム帝国, Betonamu Teikoku, label=none) was a short-lived puppet state of Imperial Japan governing the former French protectorates of Annam ...

in the late 10th century. Champa rice was then sent to Song China in the 11th century as a tribute gift from Champa during the reign of

Emperor Zhenzong of Song Emperor Zhenzong of Song (23 December 968 – 23 March 1022), personal name Zhao Heng, was the third emperor of the Song dynasty of China. He reigned from 997 to his death in 1022. His personal name was originally Zhao Dechang, but was changed ...

(r. 997–1022).Lynda Noreen Shaffer, ''A Concrete Panoply of Intercultural Exchange: Asia in World History'' (1997) in ''Asia in Western and World History'', edited by Ainslie T. Embree and Carol Gluck (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe), p. 839-840. Song dynasty officials gave the quick-growing champa rice to peasants across

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

in order to boost their crop yields, and its rapid growth time was crucial in feeding the burgeoning Chinese population of over 100 million.

References

Rice varieties {{ingredient-stub

See also

References