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Kinuhikari

The varieties used in the cross: Shu 2800, Hokuriku No.100, Hokuriku No.96. Cross combination: 収2800/北陸100号//北陸96号. Crossed in 1975.

Hokuriku No.122 HOK0001220

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 Koshihikari → Hokuriku No.100 Shu 2800 → Kinuhikari Hokuriku No.100 → Kinuhikari Hokuriku No.96 → Kinuhikari Kinuhikari → Yumetsukushi Koshihikari → Yumetsukushi Kinuhikari → Kinumusume Kinuhikari → Fukkura Momoko Koshihikari → Fukkura Momoko Koshihikari → Harumi Kinuhikari → Harumi Kinuhikari Hokuriku No.122 ・ 1.6% Shu 2800 Hokuriku No.100 Hokuriku No.96 Koshihikari Etsunan No.17 ・ 32.6% 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 Yumetsukushi Chikushi No.6 ・ 1.1% Kinumusume Saikai No.232 ・ 1.8% Fukkura Momoko Okayama No.57 Harumi
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

Cross combination: 収2800/北陸100号//北陸96号

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 4

Fixing Koshihikari's weakness with Koshihikari itself

Koshihikari lodges. The culm is long, and with fertiliser the plant falls over. That flaw was understood from the moment the variety was released.

The breeding objective for Kinuhikari is stated in the historical document as:

Stronger culm, good eating quality, improved blast resistance

The material chosen is the unusual part. Hokuriku No.100 is a gamma-ray induced mutant of Koshihikari — Koshihikari's own genes altered in an attempt to shorten the culm. Kinuhikari used that mutant as a parent.

The weakness of Koshihikari was attacked using a copy of Koshihikari.

A three-way cross, spring and summer of 1975

The document gives the procedure in a single sentence:

In the spring of Showa 50, Shu 2800 (seed) × Hokuriku No.100 (pollen) were crossed, and in the summer this F1 was used as the seed parent and Hokuriku No.96 as the pollen parent, in a three-way cross.

One cross in spring, another in summer, in the same year. 1975. The line number Hokuriku No.122 came eight years later.

In year 58, at F9, it was named Hokuriku No.122 and distributed to the relevant prefectures

Shorter, without losing the taste

The document's assessment:

The culm is considerably shorter than Koshihikari Lodging resistance is considerably stronger than Koshihikari. Eating quality matches Koshihikari and is extremely good.

Shorter, harder to lodge, and the eating quality was not given up. Stating both as an objective is easy; the weight of that last line is that something survived which did both.

Share of paddy rice area in the 2024 crop: 1.6%, tenth nationally. It has been used mainly around the Kinki region, where growers wanted to avoid how difficult Koshihikari is to manage.

Follow the diagram up and it returns to Koshihikari by way of Hokuriku No.100. With the mutant standing in one generation, Kinuhikari is a grandchild of Koshihikari.

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「越南17号を親とする品種一覧」（全607行） — 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34号（水稲農林22号）」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. 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
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. 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
  15. イネ品種データベース検索システム 交配系譜図「北陸122号（キヌヒカリ）」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  16. イネ品種データベース検索システム 交配系譜図「北陸100号」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  17. 令和6年産 水稲の品種別作付割合 — Rice Stable Supply Support Organization ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  18. イネ品種データベース検索システム「北陸122号（キヌヒカリ）を親とする品種一覧」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  19. 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
  20. 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
  21. 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
  22. 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
  23. コシヒカリBLの導入のねらい — Niigata Prefectural Government ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  24. イネ品種データベース検索システム「西海232号（きぬむすめ）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-11
  25. イネ品種データベース検索システム「北陸122号（キヌヒカリ）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-11
  26. 登録品種 — Fukuoka Agriculture and Forestry Research Center ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-11
  27. 品種登録データベース「夢つくし」登録番号第4414号 — Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-11
  28. 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
  29. 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
  30. 品種登録データベース「ふっくらももこ」登録番号第13297号 — Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  31. 品種登録データベース 品種名検索（品種名のよみ） — Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  32. 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
  33. 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
  34. 全農育成の水稲品種「はるみ」〜平成27年度から神奈川県の奨励品種に〜（グリーンレポート No.551、2015年5月号 p.21） — National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (JA ZEN-NOH) ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-08