GUNMA, Aug. 24 — Despite the continuing heat waves, konjac leaves are growing well in farms in Shibukawa, Gunma Prefecture, one of the major producing areas of the plant, whose corms are used to make konnyaku, a high-fiber, jelly-like food valued for its health benefits.
The konjac plant, also known as devil’s tongue, grows thick like a jungle, but surprisingly enough, each plant actually has a single leaf divided into numerous leaflets.
The summer is when konjac corms underground grow significantly in size, and farms are busy disinfecting the leaves to protect them from disease.
Shibukawa, thanks to its pumice soils that drain well, is fit for konjac cultivation. There are 175 farms in the city cultivating the plant on land totaling 550 hectares.
Katsunari Goto, 58, who heads a group of konjac growers in Gunma, Japan’s top producer of konjac, cultivates the plant on a 7-hectare land.
Each plant grows a leaf as long as 80 to 90 centimeters, and because it is a single-leaf plant, if a part of it gets a disease, the whole plant will be affected.
Goto disinfects the leaves of his plants once every 10 days between July and mid-September.
The sales prices of konjac corms have remained low in recent years reflecting the declining consumption of konnyaku.
As konnyaku is most often served in simmered dishes or hot pots and its consumption tends to drop in summer, Konjac growers are recommending good ways to eat it cold, such as serving cold shirataki konjac noodles like a salad with dressing.
“I encourage people to eat konnyaku cold particularly during the hot summer,” Goto said.
Konjac grower Katsunari Goto checks the long leaves of his plants in Shibukawa, Gunma Prefecture.