Plant · P-684

Northern Wild Rice

Zizania palustris

Northern Wild Rice is an aquatic annual grass whose grain has been a dietary staple and namesake for the Ojibwa, who call it manoomin, and the Menominee, who take their name from it, yielding over 500 pounds of seed an acre from an established bed. It needs shallow, slow-moving fresh water, ripens over a two to three week window in late summer, and its seed will not survive drying - it has to be kept wet and cold until sown, and finished grain sold for eating cannot be replanted. A new bed is slow to establish, often taking three to four years to know whether a site will hold it, and both planting and harvesting usually require a permit.