Tohoku Agricultural Research Center, NARO

Our group aims to develop new varieties of wheat and vegetables (onion, strawberry, Chinese cabbage, etc) that are suitable for cold climates. So far, we have developed strawberry varieties for early summer harvesting in cold climates "Soyokano", summer-autumn harvesting everbearing varieties "Natsunoshizuku", and wheat variety namely "Natsukogane" with bread-making properties equivalent to those of overseas varieties. We have cultivated "Yawarahime", a variety of wheat flour products that are rare in the world and do not harden easily. We have also been developing DNA markers to support breeding.
On the fifth Mid-term Plan, we will develop elite lines of wheat and vegetables with data-driven breeding by utilizing genome information and images, sensing data and/or deep learning.