hinshu.jp The family trees of Japanese crop varieties
Text size

Home Rice

Azusa

Parents: Norin No.22 (seed parent) and Hokuriku No.26 (pollen parent). Crossed in 1945. Bred by Niigata Prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station (cross) → Nagaoka → Hokuriku Agricultural Experiment Station.

Hokuriku No.56 HOK0000560

Pedigree

Skip the diagram and read the list
Norin No.8 → Norin No.22 Norin No.6 → Norin No.22 Ginbozu → Norin No.8 Asahi → Norin No.8 Joshu → Norin No.6 Sen'ichi → Norin No.6 Norin No.22 → Azusa Hokuriku No.26 → Azusa Azusa Hokuriku No.56 Norin No.22 Kinki No.34 Hokuriku No.26 Norin No.8 Kinki No.15 Norin No.6 Kinki No.9 Joshu Sen'ichi Ginbozu Asahi
The diagram shows this variety's own parents and the line that connects it to Koshihikari. Among the descendants only the main varieties are drawn; the other parent of each cross, and every descendant not drawn here, are listed in full below. Faint boxes are unnamed breeding lines.

Parents

Descendants

Relations are counted along the shortest line of descent. The rows in the diagram follow the order of crosses, so a variety with more than one path down can sit lower in the diagram than its relation here suggests.

Supple, and yet lodging is a concern

"Paddy Rice Hokuriku No.56" was crossed in 1945 at the Ministry's designated paddy rice breeding trial site in the Niigata Prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station, taking "Norin No.22" as the mother and "Hokuriku No.26" as the father; selection and fixing were pursued at the Ministry's Nagaoka Agricultural Improvement Laboratory from 1947 and at the Ministry's Hokuriku Agricultural Experiment Station from 1951, and in 1952 it was given the line name "Hokuriku No.56" and distributed to the relevant prefectures and others while its regional suitability was examined; in fiscal 1955 it stands at F10.

The mother is Norin No.22 — Koshihikari's mother. The cross was made in 1945, a year after Koshihikari's.

The verdict on the culm runs the other way from the other varieties on this site.

The culm is of medium thickness and rich in flexibility, but lodging is a concern.

Rich in flexibility, but lodging is a concern.

Yomohikari (Hokuriku No.62), out of the same mother, was "rich in flexibility and, for its length, lodging little… it does not snap". Tarehonami (Hokuriku No.60) was "stiff and strong against lodging… there is a risk that it will snap".

Supple and lodging, supple and not lodging, stiff and snapping. Three lines out of the same mother, and the verdict on the culm splits three ways.

Strong against the stem maggot

Its rice stem maggot resistance is strong — far stronger than Yachikogane's, and about equal to or slightly stronger than Norin No.43's.

In Yaeho's document, weakness to the rice stem maggot had shut a variety's range into the lowland. Azusa is strong against it.

There are weaknesses among the diseases, though.

Resistance to sclerotial disease and brown spot is weaker than Yachikogane's and Norin No.43's

It is not an extreme high-yielding type

"It is not an extreme high-yielding type." A breeding report, writing that about its own variety.

The strengths and the weaknesses set side by side — and on that basis Nagano decided to adopt it from fiscal 1956. Wait for a variety that is strong at everything and there is nothing to put in the field.

Sources disagree

On naming

Variety names are proper nouns. We use a name in this language only where a published source for it can be cited; otherwise the Japanese name stands.

What we have not yet confirmed

We have not looked below the top twenty

The site covers the twenty most widely planted varieties of the 2024 crop and the varieties that connect them back to Koshihikari. Many descendants exist below that line; we have not yet verified them against primary sources.

The year Masshigura was crossed

Neither Aomori Prefecture's table of recommended-variety characteristics nor the NARO database gives the year Masshigura (Aokei No.138) was crossed. The cross itself, Ou No.341 / Yamagata No.40, and its adoption as a recommended variety in fiscal 2004 are confirmed from primary sources; the year of the cross is not. For the same reason we do not say which parent was the seed parent. On 8 October 2026 we went back to the breeder's own side. The Masshigura page in the variety database of the Aomori Prefectural Industrial Technology Research Center's Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute carries a heading reading “The origin of Masshigura” — with nothing under it. Of the institute's bulletins, only No.42 (2015) onward are online, and the issue that would hold the breeding report for Masshigura is not among them. So the year of the cross is absent from the breeder's own published material as well.

Sources

The source document is in Japanese.

  1. イネ品種データベース検索システム 交配系譜図「越南17号」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  2. イネ品種データベース検索システム 交配系譜図「近畿34号（水稲農林22号）」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  3. イネ品種データベース検索システム 交配系譜図「近畿15号（水稲農林8号）」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  4. イネ品種データベース検索システム 交配系譜図「近畿9号（水稲農林6号）」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  5. コシヒカリのエピソード1 〜交配から系統の育成まで〜 — Niigata Prefectural Government ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  6. 戦後日本のイノベーション100選「コシヒカリ」経緯 — Japan Institute of Invention and Innovation ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  7. イネ品種データベース検索システム「近畿15号（水稲農林8号）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-16
  8. イネ品種データベース検索システム「近畿9号（水稲農林6号）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-16
  9. イネ品種データベース検索システム「越南12号（ヤマコガネ）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  10. イネ品種データベース検索システム「山陰47号（ヤエホ）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  11. イネ品種データベース検索システム「北陸56号（アズサ）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01