Nandina, just google it up with quotation marks. I tried and got a slew of hits on the topic, including some research.

Is 'rice water' not the starchy residue from boiling rice ?

Nandina, if you're looking for a quick organic fix for mildew and light fungus...got milk?

2 cups to a gallon of water and apply as needed. They are studying this at Cornell as we speak; I have kept tomtoes free of blossom end rot and even more amazing, mildew off of bee balm for a whole season with two applications! Works!

Scott

The first step in cooking Japanese rice is to fill the container with cold water and roll the rice grains between your fingers to remove much starch. This first rinse produces a very milky solution that is known as rice water and used to water plants, at least in urban areas around Kyoto. I'll bet this info is too late for the project, but I REALLY WANT to hear the results!

I find it of interest, or maybe rather confusing, that 'rice water' should be used as part of a fungicide. I learnt from gardeners in Kyoto that rice water has long been used to encourage the colonisation of moss on rocks etc. This starchy substance would seem to do the same job as yoghurt or buttermilk concoctions that have been used to promote moss growth. It would then seem strange that it could be used to control fungus as it would provide the very kind of food source on which fungus may grow?

Although many mosses and fungi share the need of media and moisture, there are very different. Mosses are plants - they use the sun to create food for nutrition. Fungi (normally) do not use sunlight to create food, but usually live off of organisms that did use the sun to create food.

Mosses are plants and consumers, fungi are parasites or decomposers (or often saphrophytes, living off the decaying remains of plants or plant consumers).

Still, it would be a good to investigate the effects of rice milk on all maner of plants and diseases of plants. I saved the rice milk from the last batch and am thinking about how to use it... Any one else?

Don
Nowaday we do not rinse rice. many of rice we use are Musen mai "no wash rice" : ) : ) :).... In old day, bag of rice contained rat's poops, pea size stone, dirt etc. The machine prosece rice are much advanced than 30 years ago.
we don't have to wash/rince rice no more.

To make new stone lantern look old, use
kaki shibu (suop of persiom), hide glue mixed with clay, bury in ground for a while, liquid fertilizer with iron, balck wall nuts can be used also. Rice water is slow process.
To controle fugi tea works better than rice water.( I think rice water never intended use as fungicide)
mordan fungicide is cheaper, works better than tea.

I enjoy reading your posts.................... Yama

Thanks for your answers. Some research that I have been doing indicates that rice water used as a base liquid and combined with other natural materials may be more effective treatment for various plant diseases. Evidently these are very ancient techniques and I was hopeful that someone on this Forum might have run across reference to them.
Rice water could be made in three ways (I think). The first would be to soak unhulled rice grains in water for two or three days, strain it, and I find indication that this may possibly be a control for root knot nematode. Also, some experiments allude to faster, stronger seedling growth when watered with this type of rice water.

The second method would be water poured off from cooked rice water. Yes, Scott, I know about the recent postings of using milk to control plant mildew problems. Wonder what happens if we combine it with cooked rice water?

The third method might be rice flour whisked into water. The last two methods produce a starchy water which may just act as a 'paste' to adhere whatever to a plant surface....i.e. compost tea water + a bit of rice water may yield interesting results.

I will stop rambling on the subject and begin experimenting when growing season comes around again.

Hopefully you all have found the book LANDSCAPE AS SPIRIT by Mosko and Noden. Beautiful book! May help out those of you working on rock setting projects.

My Kyoto hosts and their neighbors used the rice rinse water to water all their house plants. This was the only fertilizer some of them used. I still think it warrants an experiment.

ps: Sorry Yama-san, I still wash my rice. My wife does not and I like mine better!

dp

Don
as we are ageing, it is hard to change habit. hehehe
Can you eat natto ?................. yama

Nandina, we have been testing the milk on greenhouse rosemary (horribly susceptible to powdery mildew) and it is not only preventitive, but curative. The principle is called antagonistic biological counter-culture. A particular organism finds the culture especially inviting, colonizes the area and actually wards off or even attacks other organisms that are trying to cohabitate (in the case of milk it is Lactobacillus spp.) I suspect your rice water may be operating under the same principle although I am unaware as to which biological might be the causitive agent. I suspect there are perfectly sound scientific reasons for the phenomaenon you are describing; we've just gotten so trigger-happy with the chemicals so no one researches the other stuff (thankfully THATS changing). Give it a try; I was VERY sceptical about the milk thing and I am totally onboard now...

Scott

Yama,

Natto is the only Japanese dish I could never eat and I think it thoroughly deserves to be described as inedible !!

Graham

Yama Sensei;

Long road trip. Finally a food post (or hijacking).

Japanese of old have been very adventuresome in what they put in the stomachs. Take seafood: if it crawls, swims, undulates or simply exists in seawater, the Japanese have figured out a way to eat it. All of it too. Fugu is an example of trial and error. I would like to meet the person who figured out that fugu was OK to eat. Just like I want to meet the first person who looked at a cow and said "you know, I think I will take a drink". A plant example is ume, inedible when raw, a staple when pickled with shisho leaves. I plan on making my own aka umeboshi next year.

Back to natto. Think long chain polymers formulated in anaerobic conditions. I gotta think someone left a partially covered jar of soybeans out in the rain under the porch for a couple of weeks, came home one night after too many "kampais", tripped over the jar, and decided to have a midnight snack. I would like to meet this person too. An "aquired taste". For me that means, 2 weeks floating on a raft in the South Pacific and natto is the only thing between me and being albatross food. A close second is tororo made from yamaimo. It's a texture thing.

For the sake of diversity, I don't like cottage cheese either.

Michael

Hi Graham and Micheal
you are missing good Japanese food :) :) :)
but you are nont only one. many Japanese fron south , they don't like natto. most of Japanese from north will eat natto, I made natto myself before . It is necessity of single man . never consider as aphrodisiac yet(hehehe ) has good protain value. freez well , no time to cook or preparation. when you have a wife or time you don't need it.
beside who want to kiss to some one with natto breath . ;) ;) ;) while I have no one to kiss, I am eating natto.
when I have headache and want to say "no",then eat natto.
Haveing romantic time,and want to go one step further more that is only time I don't eat natto. It is very healthy food in many way. heheheh...yama

Maybe we can find a garden use for natto? Sounds like compost to me...(No, I've never been brave enough to try...)

Yama-san, I am getting old, but I still love food!! I have not tasted nato, nor did I eat raw fish ovaries, live fish, or Kumamoto's famous raw horse meat (i do not like my sushi with a saddle). I ate (and drank) everything else offered me. I even had blow fish although I didn't know it until after the fact!

I sure am ready to go back for seconds!

dp

Hi all
I have leaned that how to make new friends in foreign country or in other ethnic group is eat what they eat. I do not ask if it is kosher food or not,( soon I have to ask) I don't tell them what I like or cannot eat . only I know is that food is not poison. That is good enough to try strange foods.

Scoot ;Just matter of time, you will be invited to our table. you can have kosher food and natto. (by the way, natto is perfectly kosher food ) It is good food for Soto shu monk too.. hehehe