Question: Whose returning soldiers would have encountered rice on their expeditions to Asia?
About the article "Rice", section "Europe".

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In 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan became the first person from Europe to reach Asia by sailing west, a voyage of which he would meet an untimely death in the island of the Philippines.
Spain sent expeditions to colonize the East Indies in their competition with Portugal to seize control over the spice trade.
However, all of these expeditions failed.
It was not until Miguel López de Legazpi, sailing from Mexico with five ships and five hundred men, reached the Philippines in 1565 and a Spanish settlement was established.
López de Legazpi was greeted by hostile Muslim tribes opposing a foreign invasion.
His attempt to land on the island of Cebu resulted in the death of one of his soldiers prompting him to explore another island and seek trade with various tribes.
Sailing south toward the island of Mindanao, López de Legazpi's fleet encountered highwinds forcing them to sail northward to the island of Bohol.
There, he captured a vessel from Borneo whose Malay sailors informed the Spaniards that the natives inhabiting the region traded with people from Borneo and Indonesia.
Arriving in Bohol, López de Legazpi noticed the hostility of the people.
The Malayan servant explained that such hostility was due to the expeditions conducted by the Portuguese from the Moluccas islands.
In 1563, Portuguese fleets arrived in Visayan waters and enslaved about 1,000 inhabitants.
López de Legazpi, with the help of the Malayan sailor, explained to the tribes in Bohol that they were not Portuguese and that they had come to the islands to trade.
Upon learning this, the chieftains and their tribes became friendlier and welcoming to the Spaniards. 
Rice was known to the Classical world, being imported from Egypt, and perhaps west Asia.
It was known to Greece by returning soldiers from Alexander the Great's military expedition to Asia.
Large deposits of rice from the first century A.D. have been found in Roman camps in Germany.
The Moors brought Asiatic rice to the Iberian Peninsula in the 10th century.
Records indicate it was grown in Valencia and Majorca.
In Majorca, rice cultivation seems to have stopped after the Christian conquest, although historians are not certain.
Muslims also brought rice to Sicily, where it was an important crop long before it is noted in the plain of Pisa (1468) or in the Lombard plain (1475), where its cultivation was promoted by Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and demonstrated in his model farms.
After the 15th century, rice spread throughout Italy and then France, later propagating to all the continents during the age of European exploration.
In European Russia, a short-grain, starchy rice similar to the Italian varieties, has been grown in the Krasnodar Krai, and known in Russia as "Kuban Rice" or "Krasnodar Rice".
In the Russian Far East several "japonica" cultivars are grown in Primorye around the Khanka lake.
Increasing scale of rice production in the region has recently brought criticism towards growers' alleged bad practices in regards to the environment.
Half of the world population's main food source is rice.
In Asia, white rice is eaten three times a day.
The main concern about white rice is that it has insufficient concentrations of vitamin A.
It has been suggested that rice could be fortified to reduce the level of nutritional vitamin A deficiencies.
Golden rice was originally created by Dr. Ingo Potrykus and his team in Zurich, Switzerland.
This genetically modified rice is capable of producing beta-carotene in the endosperm (grain) which is a pre cursor for vitamin A production.
Potrykus’s goal is to distribute the rice to poor countries whose citizens suffer blindness and even death from a lack of vitamin A. Syngenta was involved in the early development of Golden Rice and held some intellectual property on Golden Rice, but has since handed it over to non-profit institutes including the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to develop on a non-profit basis.
The scientific details of the rice were first published in Science in 2000.
The World Health Organization has stated that iron deficiency affects 30% of the world's population.
Research scientists from the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG) are helping to address this issue as part of broader program with HarvestPlus and IRRI to increase the amount of iron in rice.
They have modified three populations of rice by over expressing the genes: OsNAS1, OsNAS2 or OsNAS3.
The research team found that nicotianamine, iron, and zinc concentration levels increased in all three populations of rice relative to the controls.
Ventria Bioscience uses a proprietary system known as Express Tec for producing recombinant human proteins in rice grains.
Their most notable variety produces human Lactoferrin and Lysozyme.
These two proteins are produced naturally in human breast milk and are used globally in infant formula and rehydration products.
The company’s primary facility is located in Kansas. 
A rice plant that would not have to be planted annually could help reduce erosion by providing a permanent ground cover.
Perenniality exists in several wild rice species from Southeast Asia, but their yields are low.
These species, however, can be crossed with cultivated rice.
The challenge facing scientists is to produce a high-yielding perennial plant adapted to the poor soils of the uplands, and one that is highly responsive to low amounts of purchased inputs, and that resists diseases and insect pests.
It's a challenge IRRI scientists are currently working on.
New biotechnology tools will be used to transfer the perennial characters into cultivated rice, and new knowledge of genetic diversity will be applied to develop pest resistance.
See: Developing Perennial Upland Rice I: Field Performance of Oryza sativa/O.
rufipogon F1, F4, and BC1F4 Progeny.
Crop Sci.
43:120–128 
Deepwater rice are varieties of rice ("Oryza sativa") grown in flooded conditions with water more than deep for at least a month.
More than people in South and Southeast Asia rely on deepwater rice for their sustenance.
There are two adaptations which permit the rice to thrive in deeper water, floating rice and traditional talls.
Traditional talls are varieties that are grown at water depths of between and and have developed to be taller and have longer leaves than standard rice.
Floating rice grows in water deeper than through advanced elongation ability.
This means when a field where rice is growing floods, accelerated growth in the internodal of the stem allows the plant to keep some of its foliage on top of the water.
The Indica cultivar is the main type of deepwater rice, although varieties of Japonica have been found in Burma, Bangladesh and India.