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Honenwase

Parents: Norin No.22 (seed parent) and Norin No.1 (pollen parent). Crossed in 1944. Bred by Niigata Prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station (cross) → MAF Fukui Experiment Station → Fukui Prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station.

Etsunan No.14 ETU0000140

Pedigree

Skip the diagram and read the list
Norin No.22 → Koshihikari Norin No.1 → Koshihikari Norin No.8 → Norin No.22 Norin No.6 → Norin No.22 Moritawase → Norin No.1 Rikuu No.132 → Norin No.1 Ginbozu → Norin No.8 Asahi → Norin No.8 Joshu → Norin No.6 Sen'ichi → Norin No.6 Rikuu No.20 → Rikuu No.132 Kamenoo No.4 → Rikuu No.132 Aikoku → Rikuu No.20 Norin No.22 → Honenwase Norin No.1 → Honenwase Norin No.22 → Hatsunishiki Norin No.1 → Hatsunishiki Norin No.22 → Yamasenishiki Norin No.1 → Yamasenishiki Norin No.22 → Koshijiwase Norin No.1 → Koshijiwase Norin No.22 → Yo 44 Norin No.1 → Yo 44 Norin No.22 → Yo 45 Norin No.1 → Yo 45 Norin No.22 → Yo 46 Norin No.1 → Yo 46 Norin No.22 → Yo 47 Norin No.1 → Yo 47 Norin No.22 → Yo 48 Norin No.1 → Yo 48 Norin No.22 → Yo 49 Norin No.1 → Yo 49 Honenwase Etsunan No.14 Norin No.22 Kinki No.34 Norin No.1 Hokuriku No.4 Moritawase Rikuu No.132 Rikuu No.20 Kamenoo No.4 Aikoku Norin No.8 Kinki No.15 Norin No.6 Kinki No.9 Joshu Sen'ichi Ginbozu Asahi Koshihikari Etsunan No.17 ・ 32.6% Hatsunishiki Ou No.224 Yamasenishiki Ou No.225 Koshijiwase Sei 40 Yo 44 Yo 45 Yo 46 Yo 47 Yo 48 Yo 49
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

Siblings

  • Koshihikari Etsunan No.17
  • Hatsunishiki Ou No.224
  • Yamasenishiki Ou No.225
  • Koshijiwase Sei 40
  • Yo 44 Yo 44
  • Yo 45 Yo 45
  • Yo 46 Yo 46
  • Yo 47 Yo 47
  • Yo 48 Yo 48
  • Yo 49 Yo 49

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.

Children 1

From the same cross as Koshihikari

At the Ministry's designated paddy rice breeding trial site in the Niigata Prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station, an artificial cross was made in 1945 taking "Norin No.22" as the mother and "Norin No.1" as the father; in 1948 the F3 was received at the Ministry's Fukui Agricultural Improvement Laboratory, where selection and fixing were pursued.

The wording does not differ by a character from Koshihikari's own document. Norin No.22 as mother, Norin No.1 as father, 1945, Niigata Prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station.

Honenwase (Etsunan No.14) and Koshihikari (Etsunan No.17) are two different lines out of one cross. The numbers 14 and 17 are the numbers of lines selected within that cross.

Everything from the same cross comes to eleven.

Made to replace Norin No.1

Giving Fukui's reason for wanting it as a recommended variety, the document records how far Norin No.1 had spread, and where it stopped.

"Norin No.1" was first tested in 1930, adopted as a recommended variety in 1932, replaced the existing "Oba" and spread rapidly; by around 1939 it was planted on more than 13,000 cho, about 27% of the planted area, and the early-maturing crop of the flat land came to be occupied almost entirely by this variety.

However this variety belongs to the group weak against blast. Improvement was wanted before the war but no suitable variety was found; after the war, the gradual increase in fertiliser — above all the use of concentrated chemical fertiliser — together with declining soil fertility, made this defect the single largest cause of unstable harvests.

The cross was made to replace the father. And it was made by crossing that father with the other parent, Norin No.22.

Stronger than the father, and as good

It has fairly high resistance to leaf blast, and panicle blast resistance far stronger than "Norin No.1" and "Tedoriwase".

Grain shape and size are both medium, slightly larger than "Norin No.1", with little white belly or white core; quality is roughly the same as "Norin No.1", the milling ratio is high, and the eating quality is not inferior to "Norin No.1".

Stronger against blast, with no loss of quality or taste. Exactly what was aimed at.

It is not universal. "Not suited to poor thin soil, and against brown spot, sclerotial disease and rice stem maggot it has no particular advantage over 'Norin No.1'." The same document limits the suited land to "soil of medium fertility or better".

Planted area was 59 cho 1 tan in 1954, with 300 cho expected for 1955. Another line from the same cross went on to become the most planted rice in Japan.

Sources disagree

Which parent of Koshihikari was the seed parent

The NARO historical document states in words that Norin No.22 was the seed parent and Norin No.1 the pollen parent. Niigata Prefecture, which bred the variety, states the reverse. The diagram follows the historical document; Niigata's account is recorded here. We call neither wrong.

The year of the cross

The NARO documents appear to reproduce the prefectures' original applications for recommended-variety status and give 1945 — and the documents for Honenwase, Hatsunishiki and Yamasenishiki, all from the same cross, give 1945 as well, four in agreement. Niigata's own account says the cross was made in 1944 and that the 1945 planting was skipped for lack of hands. We use 1944 and note the discrepancy.

How the seed parent of Norin No.1 is written

The two spellings appear in the same NARO database, in the pedigree field and in the historical document respectively. We use the pedigree field's spelling and list the other.

How Kamenoo No.4 is written

We follow the NARO database. The commonly seen spelling uses a katakana no; we prefer the spelling we can cite.

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「越南17号（コシヒカリ）」品種来歴文書 — 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「越南17号」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  3. イネ品種データベース検索システム「北陸4号（水稲農林1号）」品種来歴文書 — 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「北陸4号」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  5. イネ品種データベース検索システム「北陸4号を親とする品種一覧」（全263行） — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. イネ品種データベース検索システム 交配系譜図「陸羽132号」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  10. イネ品種データベース検索システム 交配系譜図「陸羽20号」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  11. 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
  12. 新潟コシヒカリの軌跡 〜誕生から定着に至るまで〜 — Niigata Prefectural Government ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  13. 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
  14. あきさかりの良さを引き出す栽培法 — Fukui Prefectural Government ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  15. ぎふクリーン農業／県産品種 ハツシモ — Gifu Prefectural Government ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-11
  16. 水稲「あさひの夢」の奨励品種採用（研究成果情報） — National Agricultural Research Center, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-11
  17. コシヒカリのエピソード2 〜奨励品種への採用から〜 — Niigata Prefectural Government ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  18. コシヒカリBLの導入のねらい — Niigata Prefectural Government ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  19. 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
  20. 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
  21. イネ品種データベース検索システム「越南14号（ホウネンワセ）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  22. イネ品種データベース検索システム「奥羽224号（ハツニシキ）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  23. イネ品種データベース検索システム「奥羽225号（ヤマセニシキ）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  24. イネ品種データベース検索システム「近畿34号を親とする品種一覧」（全167行） — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  25. イネ品種データベース検索システム 交配系譜図「生40（越路早生）」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  26. 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
  27. 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