--- title: Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed the world — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed the world», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Three plants feed a huge share of the world. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants t… # Rice, maize and potatoes: the plants that feed the world Lesson 345 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 21 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/0/) — Three plants feed a huge share of the world. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/1/) — Rice is a grass that can stand with its feet in water, because air travels down spongy tubes inside its stems to the roots. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/2/) — Flooded paddy fields, built as steps on hills, drown many weeds that cannot cope. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/3/) — Maize, or corn, is a grass too. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/4/) — Peel back the husk and each long silky thread leads to one kernel; pollen from the feathery tassel on top must land on that silk or the kernel never grows. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/5/) — Count the rows on a cob and you nearly always get an even number. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/6/) — Potatoes are not seeds or roots but swollen underground stems. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/7/) — They came from the cold Andes mountains of South America, where thousands of purple, red and knobbly kinds still grow. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/8/) — Every grain of rice or kernel of maize is a seed with a tiny baby plant inside, which is why one grain planted can give back hundreds or even thousands. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/9/) — Rice can grow in flooded fields because air passes down spongy tubes in its stems to the roots, and flooding drowns many weeds; some farmers keep ducks or fish in the paddy to eat pests and weeds. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/10/) — Rice is the main food for billions of people, especially in Asia; China and India grow the most, and a field can give two or three crops a year in warm, wet places. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/11/) — One rice plant makes several stems, each ending in a head of about a hundred grains or more, so one grain planted can give back hundreds or thousands. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/12/) — White rice is brown rice with the outer layers, called bran, polished off; it cooks faster and keeps longer, but the bran held vitamin B1. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/13/) — Japanese navy sailors who ate mostly white rice once fell ill with beriberi, an illness that makes the legs weak and numb, until doctors added other foods. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/14/) — Corn cobs nearly always have an even number of rows, often 12 to 20, because the kernels grow in pairs, and one cob carries about 500 to 800 kernels. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/15/) — Each silk thread on a maize cob is joined to one kernel, and pollen from the tassel must land on the silk for that kernel to grow; maize is planted in blocks so pollen reaches plenty of silk. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/16/) — Maize came from teosinte, a wild grass of Mexico whose ear held only about a dozen hard kernels; farmers changed it over thousands of years by keeping seed from their best plants. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/17/) — Maize now grows on every continent except Antarctica, and much of it feeds farm animals. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/18/) — Potatoes were first farmed in the Andes of South America perhaps 7000 or more years ago, grow well in cold, high places, and were brought to Europe by the Spanish in the 1500s. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/19/) — A potato turned green in the light has also made a bitter natural poison called solanine, so green parts and sprouts should be cut away and potatoes stored in the dark. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/345-rice-maize-and-potatoes-the-plants-that-feed-the-world/20/) — Potatoes are cousins of tomatoes, peppers and aubergines; the small green fruits on a potato plant look like little tomatoes but are poisonous, and farmers grow potatoes from seed potatoes. - ← previous: [Honey and the beekeeper's year](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/344-honey-and-the-beekeepers-year/) - next →: [Fruit: how apples, bananas, oranges, strawberries and grapes grow](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/346-fruit-how-apples-bananas-oranges-strawberries-and-grapes-grow/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)