The words and figures of adoption

The back half of a historical document is usually about whether a prefecture will adopt the variety. It is not the breeder's prose but the case made by the side taking it in.

Read through them and you find that adoption comes in stages of wording, and that the figure expected and the figure achieved are written separately. None of this is visible from a single variety's page, so it is set out here.

Stages of wording

The same "we are going to use this" is written at different strengths from document to document.

Wording	Document
thought suited	Obakowase: "thought suited to the flat fertile land of northern Miyagi and of Iwate"
examining adoption	Obakowase: "Akita Prefecture is examining adoption as a recommended variety from fiscal 1953"
giving consideration to adoption	Paddy Rice Norin No.50: "the prefectures giving consideration to adopting it from fiscal 1949 are as follows. Yamagata. Miyagi."
planned	Wakakusa, Harukaze, Chiyohikari
adopted	Yamahonami: "Oita Prefecture adopted it as a recommended variety from fiscal 1958"

Three prefectures appear in Obakowase's document and every one is still "examining" or "thought". Some documents are written through to the exit; others stop at the entrance. This site can state an adopting prefecture only as far as the words go.

Expected and actual

A few documents set the area expected beside the area actually planted.

Variety	Expected	Actual	Ratio
Kaganishiki (Hokuriku No.36)	6,000 chōbu	20 chōbu	one three-hundredth
Wakakusa (Etsunan No.39)	5,000 ha	1,062 ha	one fifth

Kaganishiki reached a three-hundredth of what was expected. Wakakusa reached a fifth, and came comparatively close.

Where no actual figure was written, only the expectation survives.

Variety	Expected
Harukaze (Kanto No.74)	about 3,000 ha (Wakayama)
Mineasahi (Chubu No.17)	900 ha (Aichi)

An expectation left alone in a document must not be read as an achievement. That is why this site does not write that a variety "spread".

How much seed there was to give

Some documents, before adoption, write how much seed exists to distribute.

Variety	Seed
Wakasa (Etsunan No.15)	180 litres
Wakakusa (Etsunan No.39)	250 kg of foundation seed
Mineasahi (Chubu No.17)	5 kg line seed / 50 kg ordinary seed

Not in shō or bales but litres and kilogrammes. A decision to adopt spreads nothing if there is no seed.

What the case for adoption actually rests on

Not necessarily yield.

Confirmed in the year the disease came, in the place it came to — Chokai (Tohoku No.56)

In 1952 blast was prevalent and the damage heavy in the north of the prefecture, and in the on-site trials conducted in that district the safety of Tohoku No.56 was confirmed.

Not a trial designed to test it — a disaster that served as the trial. Akita's case lays out the planting of the day in chō: Norin No.17 at 19,400, Okunikuwase No.5 at 13,700, Shinko No.190 at 12,300, Rikuu No.132 at 8,500. More than fifty thousand chō sharing one weakness.

It loses on yield — Chiyohikari (Tokai No.6)

As to yield, compared with Norin No.8, it was superior in two of the past five years and inferior in three.

Adopted all the same, for its strong culm, disease resistance and quality.

The system changed and a slot opened — Wakasa (Etsunan No.15)

From fiscal 1961, two varieties each for early, mid and late maturity serve as the core varieties … the former semi-recommended-variety system is abolished, and recommended varieties for specific districts are established.

A variety described as having "a comparatively narrow range of suitable land" got in once a new slot existed.

Whether a machine can cut it — Mineasahi (Chubu No.17)

it lodges much, its suitability for mechanisation is poor, and it has come to hinder stable production.

A document from 1980. A variety that lodges cannot be cut by machine.

To break the labour peak — Wakakusa (Etsunan No.39)

to break the labour peak at harvest in the flat and hill districts, excellent early-to-mid varieties have been strongly sought.

Lean on the good varieties and the cropping season gathers into one point, and hands run short. Aomori, in Mutsukogane's (Fukei No.62) document, had the same problem: more than eight-tenths of the prefecture in mid-maturing varieties.

What fraction of what it will displace — Mineasahi (Chubu No.17)

to replace all of the Ozora in this district, 80% of the Minehikari, 15% of the Akibare and 60% of the other varieties

The most detailed adoption plan on this site.

The scale of the on-site trials

None of this was settled at a desk.

Variety	On-site trials
Wakakusa (Etsunan No.39)	75 places in all (33 in fiscal 1961, 42 in fiscal 1962)
Chokai (Tohoku No.56)	6 places in the prefecture (4 replications) plus 24 places with the extension offices' help (2 replications)

Dozens of fields borrowed, over two years, to be sure. And one of the varieties so tested was planted on a three-hundredth of the area expected.