In the long-term production practice, the working people in our country have long recognized that the buds and tender organs of some plants (seeds) are edible. This kind of food is named as "bud", "brain", "head", "tip" and "tip" to show its fresh and tender quality, crisp taste and rich nutrition. This shows that predecessors have defined a general category for bud vegetables. Folk also have some established names for sprouts, such as "willow bud" eaten by folk, which is the tender bud sprouted by willow branches in spring. The tip of fingered citron is the tender tip of fingered citron seedling, and the chrysanthemum brain is the tender bud and leaf sprouted by the perennial root of a perennial plant in Compositae in spring. "Brain" also has the essence of things in its meaning. China Vegetable Cultivation (Wu Gengmin), published in 1957, expanded the sprout, and defined it as "making vegetables by sprouting and elongating seeds such as beans, radishes and buckwheat, hence the name sprout". It is also pointed out that sprouts can be cultivated in weak light by using the nutrients stored in seeds, without applying fertilizer, and generally without sowing in soil (also in sand or soil). In addition to the traditional bean seeds sprouting to produce sprouts, the above definition also includes sprouts produced from vegetable seeds radish and crop seeds buckwheat.
China's bean sprouts production technology was introduced to Japan in the Edo period, but the variety has been limited to a few varieties such as soybean sprouts and mung bean sprouts. Tamura Shigeru 1977 defines sprouts as "the product of seeds of beans and buckwheat sprouting in the dark". This definition is basically similar to that in Wu Gengmin's annotation (1957).
1982 published Japanese book "Softening Wild Vegetables with Buds" (Xiyuan Fanyi) has the following discussion on sprouts: "Cultivation in greenhouse, close sowing, proper temperature and humidity to ensure germination, and produce soft and juicy plant buds and leaves as commodities." This discussion extends the scope of sprouts to the tender organs of plants, which is very similar to the traditional names of sprouts in China-the concepts of bud, head, tip, tip and brain.
1990 The China Agricultural Encyclopedia Vegetable Volume was published. This volume defines sprouts as: "young shoots and seedlings cultivated by shading (or not shading) seeds of beans, radishes, alfalfa, etc." And the sprouts are included in the 15 category of vegetables classified according to agricultural biology. This definition lists other sprouts such as alfalfa sprouts, which enriches the types of sprouts, but still limits the scope of sprouts to young sprouts germinated from seeds, and fails to include sprouts such as tips, shoots, heads and brains generated by plant vegetative organs.
1994 On the basis of predecessors' definitions, the research group of sprout vegetables of Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences appropriately expanded the definition of sprout vegetables, and revised it as follows: "All edible buds, sprouts, gemmule, young shoots or young stems directly grown by using plant seeds or other nutrient storage organs can be called sprout vegetables for short."
The expanded definition of sprouts redefines the scope of sprouts, clarifies the position of sprouts in vegetable classification, standardizes the types of sprouts, and improves the classification system of vegetables, which is of guiding significance for the future scientific research and production of sprouts.