Tohoku Agricultural Research Center, NARO

Rice Breeding Group

In the Tohoku region, there is an increasing demand for rice cultivars suitable for business use (home-meal replacement, eating-out, etc.), for processing, and for the production of feed and rice whole crop silage. It is also important in the future to expand the direct seeding to allow large-scale and labor-saving farming. So far, we have bred "Moeminori", "Eminoaki" and "Chihominori" as the cultivars for business use with good tasting and high yielding in direct seeding systems; "Tokimekimochi" as a glutinous cultivar to lodging; "Yumefuwari" for rice flour bread; "Bekoaoba", "Bekogonomi" and "Iwaidawara" as high-yield forage cultivars for direct seeding; and "Bekogenki" as a rice cultivar for whole crop silage.

"Chihominori" is a rice cultivar with early maturation, high yield, high eating quality and high adaptability to direct seeding. "Moeminori" is a cultivar with moderate maturation, high-yield, high eating quality and high adaptability to direct seeding, but unlikely to be satisfactory in the north of Tohoku region. The quality of rice flour from "Yumefuwari" is so high to bulge well that you can make the bread with a "Motchiri" texture. "Bekogenki" is an early maturation cultivar for whole rice silage, to be harvested at yellow ripe stage before harvesting the major rice varieties such as "Akitakomachi".

Rice blast and cold weather are still major threats in the Tohoku region. Furthermore, deterioration in quality has also become a problem due to the high-temperature ripening. To respond the increasing environmental risks, we are conducting research using DNA-marker selection to efficiently introduce the blast resistance, cold tolerance, and high-temperature-ripening tolerance. Thus, there is an increasing demand to develop new cultivars that could adapt to rice cultivation particularly in the Tohoku region.

Our demonstration farm for breeding varieties

Group Leader

OHTA Hisatoshi

Group Members

Centers・Institutes