The grass is not grown for its grain, as are other wild rice species, but for the stems, which swell into juicy galls when infected with the smut.

When the fungus invades the host plant it causes it to hypertrophy; its cells increasing in size and number.

Infection with U. esculenta prevents the plant from flowering and setting seed so the crop is propagated asexually, by rhizome.

[citation needed] It has been accidentally introduced into the wild in New Zealand and is considered an invasive species there.

in order to protect the North American wild rice species from the fungus.

Manual "repeated pollination", a different approach, produces fertile offspring with ~0.1% wild rice DNA.