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Masshigura

Parents: Ou No.341 and Yamagata No.40. The sources do not state which was the seed parent and which the pollen parent.

Aokei No.138 AOK0001380

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 → Akitakomachi Ou No.292 → Akitakomachi Akitakomachi → Ou No.341 Ou No.341 → Masshigura Yamagata No.40 → Masshigura Masshigura Aokei No.138 ・ 2.5% Ou No.341 Yamagata No.40 Akitakomachi Akita No.31 ・ 6.7% Koshihikari Etsunan No.17 ・ 32.6% Ou No.292 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
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: 奥羽341号/山形40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.

Bred as a rice for the food trade

Aomori Prefecture's table of recommended-variety characteristics sets out where this variety sits. Tsugaru Roman was the household rice; Yume Akari and Mutsu Homare were the rice for the food trade. Masshigura was adopted into that second slot — rice for commercial and institutional use.

Contributing to the competitiveness and stable production of the prefecture's rice for the food trade

Adopted as a recommended variety in fiscal 2004. Plant variety registration followed on 31 July 2009, registration number 18348.

Not rice to be cooked at home, but rice for bento, onigiri and restaurants. The objective is set differently from a variety that maximises eating quality alone.

An honest set of numbers

The prefecture's assessment is written as comparisons against existing varieties.

Eating quality: two ranks above "Mutsu Homare", slightly above "Yume Akari" — "upper-middle" Blast: two ranks stronger than "Yume Akari" and one rank stronger than "Mutsu Homare", on both leaf and panicle — "strong" Cold tolerance: one rank weaker than "Yume Akari" and one rank stronger than "Mutsu Homare" — "fairly strong" Yield: slightly higher than "Yume Akari", slightly lower than "Mutsu Homare"

Eating quality up, blast resistance up, cold tolerance down one rank. The document does not claim it wins on everything. What was taken and what was conceded can both be read off it.

Share of paddy rice area in the 2024 crop: 2.5%, seventh nationally. It accounts for most of Aomori's planted area.

A great-grandchild of Akitakomachi's line

The cross is "Ou No.341 / Yamagata No.40". Trace Ou No.341 back and it is "Chubu No.49 / Akita No.31" — and Akita No.31 is Akitakomachi.

Akitakomachi is a child of Koshihikari, which makes Masshigura a great-grandchild of Koshihikari.

A variety built for the food trade carries, in its backbone, the blood of the variety that spread as the peak of household rice. The uses diverge; the line traced back does not.

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. イネ品種データベース検索システム 交配系譜図「秋田31号（あきたこまち）」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  15. 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
  16. 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
  17. 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
  18. 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
  19. 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
  20. コシヒカリBLの導入のねらい — Niigata Prefectural Government ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  21. イネ品種データベース検索システム「秋田31号（あきたこまち）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  22. あきたこまち（美の国あきたネット） — Akita Prefectural Government ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  23. 水稲新品種「あきたこまち」の育成について（秋田県農業試験場研究報告 第29号, 1989年, 65-88頁） — Akita Agricultural Experiment Station ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-10
  24. 水稲奨励品種「まっしぐら」の特性 — Aomori Prefecture ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-11
  25. イネ品種データベース検索システム 交配系譜図「青系138号（まっしぐら）」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-11
  26. イネ品種データベース検索システム 交配系譜図「奥羽341号」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-11
  27. イネ品種データベース検索システム 交配系譜図「山形40号」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-11
  28. 品種データベース「まっしぐら」 — Aomori Prefectural Industrial Technology Research Center ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-11
  29. 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
  30. 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
  31. 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
  32. 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