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Wakakusa

Parents: Norin No.22 (seed parent) and Sasashigure (pollen parent). Crossed in 1953. Bred by MAF Hokuriku Agricultural Experiment Station (cross) → Fukui Prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station.

Etsunan No.39 ETU0000390

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 Norin No.22 → Wakakusa Sasashigure → Wakakusa Wakakusa Etsunan No.39 Norin No.22 Kinki No.34 Sasashigure 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

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.

Every variety it is compared with is a relative

Wakakusa's document describes its character against these three.

Compared with Relation to Koshihikari
Honenwase Sibling, out of the same cross
Koshijiwase Sibling, out of the same cross
Tarehonami Half sibling through Norin No.22

Compared with "Honenwase" the leaves are darker, broader and more erect. The culm is somewhat shorter and the panicles somewhat fewer. The habit broadly resembles "Koshijiwase"'s, intermediate to somewhat panicle-number type. In quality and eating it is about level with "Honenwase" and "Koshijiwase" and a clear step above the check variety "Tarehonami".

Wakakusa's own mother is Norin No.22, so the table of comparisons holds nothing but relatives.

NARO's listing holds 167 varieties with Norin No.22 as a parent. Select in the Hokuriku region and your comparisons being kin was the natural outcome.

Made to fill in Tarehonami's weakness

For this reason it makes up for these faults of "Tarehonami" and is desirable for improving the prefecture's rice. Excellent early-to-mid varieties have been strongly sought, both for a variety suited to the mountains and foothills and to break the labour peak at harvest in the flat and hill districts.

"Tarehonami"'s difficulty, sprouting in the panicle, is considerably improved, and the grain is somewhat larger

One half sibling made to fill in another half sibling's weakness.

Tarehonami's fault was sprouting in the panicle. The variety that fixed it came out of the same mother.

The on-site trials ran to 75 places in all (33 in fiscal 1961, 42 in fiscal 1962). Seventy- five fields borrowed over two years to make sure.

5,000 ha expected, 1,062 ha planted

Area expected under it: 5,000 ha. The area planted in fiscal 1963 is 1,062 ha.

A fifth.

We saw the same thing in Kaganishiki's document (6,000 chōbu expected against 20 actual). That was a three-hundredth, so Wakakusa came comparatively close.

Yield cannot be called especially high compared with "Tarehonami"'s

The document arguing for its adoption says this about its own variety. It was a swap that raised the quality and not the yield.

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 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. イネ品種データベース検索システム「越南39号（ワカクサ）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01