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Tarehonami

Parents: Norin No.22 (seed parent) and Hokuriku No.11 (pollen parent). Crossed in 1946. Bred by Niigata Prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station (cross) → Nagaoka → Hokuriku Agricultural Experiment Station.

Hokuriku No.60 HOK0000600

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 Tarehonami → Inabawase Inabawase → Toyamanishiki Norin No.22 → Tarehonami Hokuriku No.11 → Tarehonami Tarehonami Hokuriku No.60 Norin No.22 Kinki No.34 Hokuriku No.11 Norin No.8 Kinki No.15 Norin No.6 Kinki No.9 Joshu Sen'ichi Ginbozu Asahi Inabawase Hokuriku No.84 Toyamanishiki Toyama No.16
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.

Children 1

Grandchildren 1

The length of the panicle, and sterility of unknown cause

Hokuriku No.60 was crossed in 1946 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.11 as the father, and was thereafter selected and fixed at the Ministry's Nagaoka Agricultural Improvement Laboratory and the Hokuriku Agricultural Experiment Station.

The mother is Norin No.22 — Koshihikari's mother. The cross was in 1946, two years after Koshihikari's.

As the name suggests, the panicle is the point.

The panicle is distinctly longer than those of the three varieties compared with it, the grain set extremely dense, with many secondary branches. The panicle number is low: an intermediate, long-panicled, panicle-weight type.

Few panicles, but each one long and densely set. The form called panicle-weight type.

"In some years many sterile grains of unknown cause"

Hokuriku No.60 produces, in some years, many sterile grains of unknown cause, and its ripening percentage is lower than that of the three varieties compared with it; but because the total grain number per panicle is markedly high

Of unknown cause. A breeding report says so.

Grains fail to fill, in amounts that vary by year. The proportion that fills is lower than the varieties compared with it. And yet, because the grain number per panicle is markedly high, the yield works out.

It writes down what is not known as not known, and then explains separately why the thing works anyway. That such writing survives is what makes this source worth reading.

It will not fall over, but it may snap

The culm is stiff rather than supple, and so is strong against lodging; but lacking flexibility, there is a risk that it will snap.

Stiff, so it does not fall. But it does not bend, so it may break.

Rather than writing "lodging resistance: strong" and stopping, it gives the reason for the strength and then the different danger that follows from that same reason.

Tarehonami later became the father of Inabawase. The partner was Koshihikari — so the mother's child was crossed with the mother herself.

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「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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. イネ品種データベース検索システム 来歴文書「イナバワセ」 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-09-25
  11. 品種登録データベース「とやまにしき」登録番号第332号 — Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  12. 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
  13. イネ品種データベース検索システム「北陸60号（タレホナミ）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01
  14. 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