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Wakasa

Parents: Norin No.22 (seed parent) and Norin No.14 (pollen parent). Crossed in 1946. Bred by Konosu Testing Site, National Agricultural Experiment Station (cross) → MAF Izumo → MAF Fukui → Fukui Prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station.

Etsunan No.15 ETU0000150

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 → Wakasa Norin No.14 → Wakasa Norin No.22 → Yamahonami Norin No.14 → Yamahonami Wakasa Etsunan No.15 Norin No.22 Kinki No.34 Norin No.14 Norin No.8 Kinki No.15 Norin No.6 Kinki No.9 Joshu Sen'ichi Ginbozu Asahi Yamahonami Etsunan No.18
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

  • Yamahonami Etsunan No.18

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.

One cross, two Etsunan numbers

Etsunan No.15 was crossed in 1946 at the Konosu Testing Site of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Agricultural Experiment Station, taking "Paddy Rice Norin No.22" as the mother and "Paddy Rice Norin No.14" as the father; in 1947 the F1 seed was distributed to the Ministry's Izumo Agricultural Improvement Laboratory, and the following year, 1948, the Ministry's Fukui Agricultural Improvement Laboratory took it over and entered it in the F2 individual-selection trial

Yamahonami's document (Etsunan No.18) says the same thing.

At the Konosu Testing Site of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Agricultural Experiment Station, in 1946, taking "Paddy Rice Norin No.22" as the mother and "Paddy Rice Norin No.14" as the father, an artificial cross was made; in 1947 the F1 seed was distributed to the Ministry's Izumo Agricultural Improvement Laboratory, and the following year, 1948, the Ministry's Fukui Agricultural Improvement Laboratory took it over

Not only the year, the place, the mother and the father, but the route it was sent along. Crossed at Konosu, handed to Izumo, taken over by Fukui the next year.

Koganenami and Yaeho were also two lines out of a single cross, but those two went to different prefectures. These two were both selected in the same Fukui.

And still what came out differed.

Maturity
Etsunan No.15 Wakasa Early
Etsunan No.18 Yamahonami Late-mid

One lot of seed, one place of selection, and the maturity split. The selector is pulling different things out of a single population.

The system changed, and it was adopted

As a rice-exporting prefecture, this prefecture has been forced into a root-and-branch reform of its recommended-variety system: from fiscal 1961, two varieties each for early, mid and late maturity serve as the core varieties for improving the prefecture's rice, the former semi-recommended-variety system is abolished, and recommended varieties for specific districts are established.

As a result, Etsunan No.15 has a comparatively narrow range of suitable land, but … we wish to recommend it as a variety stronger against blast and the stem maggot than early varieties such as Norin No.30 and Hokuriku No.14, with a strong culm and stable yields, and of extremely good quality and eating.

"A comparatively narrow range of suitable land." Something that could not fit while the number of slots was fixed got in once a new slot — "for specific districts" — was created.

Whether a variety is taken up is not settled by the variety alone. The shape of the prefecture's system counts for as much.

180 litres of seed available

Quantity of seed that can be distributed: 180 litres.

Not in shō or in bales but in litres. The other documents give areas in chōbu or hectares; this one gives the seed as a volume.

The text also carries one character that cannot be read: "occasionally short-awned, pale yellow together with the ？ apiculus". That "？先" is not unique to this document; Yamaseshirazu's page sets out where else it appears.

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15号（ワカサ）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ 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18号（ヤマホナミ）」品種来歴文書 — Institute of Crop Science, NARO ・ primary source ・ accessed 2026-10-01