Abstract
Rice paddy art（Tambo art in Japanese） is a huge artwork of fi gures or letters in the rice paddy as a canvas, drawn
with planting rice varieties with diff erent leaf or panicle colors. It is an eff ective use of rice paddies to create a tourism resource and to revitalize the local community. It has been spread throughout Japan and now attracts great interest from overseas as well. The rice varieties used, collectively called ornamental or landscape varieties, have purple, red, yellow, or white leaves or panicles, unlike ordinary rice, and have been known to exist since ancient times and have been preserved in universities and agricultural research institutions. Recently, new varieties have been bred based on these native varieties and mutant lines. This review introduces a century-old Wakayama Prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station report on local rice varieties and summarizes some examples and methods of creating rice paddy art throughout Japan and the issues related to ornamental rice varieties.
