Hokuriku No.19

Crossed with Norin No.1 before it had the name

"Paddy Rice Hokuriku No.19" was crossed in 1930 at the Ministry-designated paddy rice breeding site at the Niigata Prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station, taking "Iwata Asahi No.3" as the mother and "Shin No.88" (the line that later became "Paddy Rice Norin No.1") as the father

The father is "Shin No.88", with the bracket "the line that later became Paddy Rice Norin No.1".

The cross was made in 1930. Paddy Rice Norin No.1 was named in 1931, so this cross was made before its father had the name.

It is the oldest cross using Norin No.1 that this site holds.

A year apart, and the name changes.

The same shape appears in Hatsuminori, whose mother is "Hokuriku No.23 (the line that later became Paddy Rice Norin No.21)". No name at the cross, a name by the time the document is written. That is why this site prints the regional number alongside in its pedigrees.

The preface says "already 32 varieties"

In order to breed fine new varieties of paddy rice, this Ministry has since fiscal 1927 divided the country into eight districts by climate and soil, designated one prefectural agricultural experiment station in each, granted it the whole of its costs, and conducted trials with the Ministry's own Agricultural Experiment Station as the pivot

The eight-district system begun in fiscal 1927. The same sentences run in the prefaces of Paddy Rice Norin No.6, No.8 and No.20.

What differs is a number partway through.

And the fine new varieties bred by this system already reach 32.

The same preface is reused with the number rewritten year by year. A system begun in 1927 had produced 32 varieties in fifteen years — and that progress survives as the change of a figure in one sentence.

Clearly higher-yielding only under heavy fertiliser

"Paddy Rice Hokuriku No.19" heads and ripens three or four days earlier than "Ginbozu Chusei", the mid-maturing non-glutinous variety of the Hokuriku region, with a somewhat short, strong culm and somewhat short but numerous panicles; its disease resistance is somewhat better and its grain shape and quality extremely good.

Its yield is about that of "Ginbozu Chusei" on standard plots, but on heavily fertilised plots it is clearly higher-yielding.

Grown ordinarily they draw; fertilise and it wins.

Ginbozu Chusei, the variety it is compared with, appears elsewhere on this site as Yomohikari's father. "Ginbozu", of a similar name, is recorded separately, and that one is the mother of Paddy Rice Norin No.8, Koshihikari's maternal grandmother. Whether the two come from the same line has not been confirmed in a source, so no link is drawn.

This is how a new variety was valued in a period when answering fertiliser was the question.

This variety appears suited chiefly to the flat, heavily fertilised cultivation districts of the Hokuriku region from Niigata southwards.

"Flat, heavily fertilised cultivation districts." The amount of fertiliser is inside the name of the district itself.