Back to the village… “the tree has ghosts”

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In the midland and mountainous provinces, rice plants are often grown on river banks, along dikes, along roads, or in places with a lot of “negative energy” such as cemeteries, shrines, temples, etc. People are still afraid to touch them. into the rice tree for fear of retribution due to rumors that anyone who cuts down a tree or does something “disrespectful” will definitely encounter disaster. I don’t know what percentage of these stories are true, but the fear of touching this plant is real.

But in Hen Quan commune, it is different. The entire commune has hundreds of rice plants, but most are considered “economic” plants.

Thanks to the mistletoe growing on rice plants, many families in Hien Quan The family has visibly “prospered”.

It is rumored that the extremely valuable rice plant mistletoe can cure many diseases from purifying the body to detoxifying liver and kidney diseases, diabetes… and even diseases that people don’t know what they are, they also look to this plant as an elixir.

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< p>The strange thing is that in many places there are rice plants but it is very rare to have mistletoe. So many people have risked their lives to cut down entire rice trees just to get a few pounds of mistletoe. But in Hien Quan commune, it was as if it were a “godsend” on rice tree trunks with countless amounts of mistletoe, so much so that the trees could not grow, could not produce flowers or fruit, some even died because the mistletoe had absorbed all the nutrients. . That’s why people from all over come here to buy mistletoe to cure diseases.

Through research, we learned that each rice plant has such mistletoe for the people. In the commune, the income ranges from a few dozen to hundreds of millions of dong each year.

We stopped by Mr. Chu Van Vuong’s house, a family with an ancient rice tree of many sizes. sent to the commune and was also “told” by the people that thanks to the mistletoe rice tree, his family is building a spacious house.

Show us the rice tree The back of the house is still full of mistletoe. My husband and I said that recently, on May 5 (folk belief is a good day to cut herbal medicine), we “culled” more than a quintal of fresh mistletoe. Cars arrived to line up and the workers couldn’t keep up.

With the selling price of 300,000 VND a kilo of fresh mistletoe or 600,000 VND a kilo of dried mistletoe, his family still earns a living. tens of millions of silver a day. It’s a winter day and it’s normal to sell a few dozen kilos.

If there is a buyer, he hires someone to pick the big branches and leave the small ones. short enough for the next crop, without needing to take any care, each year his family can harvest hundreds of millions of dong.

In Hien Quan, households like Mr. Vuong’s family not rare. The number of families with ancient rice trees that bring in “hundreds of millions in revenue” each year must also have 4-5 trees, and the number of families that have about thirty or forty million in revenue is more widespread.

< p>Is it really “a blessing from heaven”?

A broken branch of mistletoe costs 200,000 VND

We went throughout the rice plants in Hien Quan commune to find the answer to the question of why the rice plants here produce so much mistletoe. If the soil and climate could explain that, it wouldn’t be possible because a few kilometers away from Hien Quan commune, there are also many rice plants but there is absolutely no sign of a mistletoe branch.

According to the people here, the most mistletoe must be ancient rice trees over a hundred years old. But it has only been about 15 years since these rice plants began to produce mistletoe, and only in the past 5 years have they sold at a good price.

According to families with vision, Mistletoe only grows abundantly on purple rice sieve, but even if it grows white rice, it cannot grow. And strangely, since mistletoe has been selling for a good price, I don’t understand why not only old trees but almost every family’s rice plants… give birth to mistletoe.

Special Rather than the rice plants that grow in people’s gardens, that is, the rice plants that have owners, even if they are just growing in diameter just slightly larger than a calf, already have mistletoe growing. While the wild rice plants, especially the rice plants at the village tutelary god shrine, have been around for many years, there is not a single branch of mistletoe to be found.

Causes suspicion Many people also shook their heads about this “artificial” thing in Hien Quan, but we were also told by one resident that grafting is completely possible or that it is also possible to “grow” mistletoe by Prick the stem of a rice branch, stuff it with ripe mistletoe berries, then apply egg white to make a “smoothie” to help the seeds germinate. We tried buying a mistletoe branch that was still clinging to the stem of a rice branch and found that this mistletoe branch was not tightly attached to the stem like regular mistletoe, but showed signs of grafting.

Talking with Master Pharmacist Nguyen Phi Hung, Head of the Pharmacy Department of the Central Traditional Medicine Hospital, we learned that rice mistletoe in natural conditions is very rare and the rice plant itself has to live a long time. year and under favorable growing environmental conditions when mistletoe seeds are dispersed naturally (by squirrels and insects).

The seeds germinate and grow. can grow on the stems of rice plants. Today, there is also rice mistletoe created by human implantation to create embryos and develop into semi-natural rice mistletoe. And artificial mistletoe has the same effect as natural mistletoe.

Real effects

When wanting to learn about the true effects of mistletoe on rice, the people in Hien Quan commune themselves do not know. All are just word of mouth rumors with effects such as cooling, detoxifying the body, detoxifying alcohol, enhancing health, helping to eat and sleep better. Many people look for mistletoe on rice plants to treat diabetic liver and kidney diseases…

And according to Pharmacist Nguyen Phi Hung, currently there is no official research. Announcing the chemical composition, acute toxicity, semi-permanent toxicity and biological effects of rice mistletoe. And there are no official documents written about rice mistletoe.

According to folk experience, rice mistletoe is non-toxic and is used in acute glomerulonephritis. chronic kidney failure hepatitis hepatitis virus cirrhosis rheumatism bone and joint swelling blood pressure diabetes postpartum blood lipids… According to preliminary research and evaluation by scientists, rice mistletoe has anti-inflammatory effects. Cooling anti-oxidant diuretic. Therefore, rice mistletoe can be used to support the treatment of many types of chronic diseases.

Therefore, there is a need for research and official publication on ecological characteristics. and develop the chemical composition of acute toxicity, subacute toxicity and effective biological effects for clinical application to have a basis for guiding the widespread use of rice mistletoe.

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Mr. Hung also warned that due to the rare nature of rice mistletoe, people rumored that it is effective as a panacea to cure all diseases, so people need to be careful when using it.

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