Festulolium ‘Northfest’ is an amphiploid forage grass cultivar derived from crosses between the tetraploid meadow fescue and perennial ryegrass. It consists of four maternal lines and 19 individuals that were bred with breeding objectives such as winter hardiness and suitability for grazing use. The winter hardiness of ‘Northfest’ was superior to that of perennial ryegrass ‘Pokoro’ and other Festulolium cultivars in all test sites in Hokkaido. On the other hand, it was inferior in the Konsen region where overwintering conditions are severe compared to the meadow fescue ‘Harusakae’, but was similar to or slightly superior in other regions including the Tokachi region, suggesting that ‘Northfest’ can be grown stably even in eastern Hokkaido where overwintering conditions are relatively mild. The average yield of ‘Northfest’ for grazing use was higher than that of ‘Harusakae’ and ‘Pokoro’ in Hokkaido under multiple harvesting, and its seasonal productivity was at the same leveled, suggesting that it is suitable for grazing. In addition, it showed better initial growth performance than both those species and excellent forage quality (such as a high digestible fiber content) comparable to that of perennial ryegrass, making it suitable for use in improving the quality of existing degraded grasslands through additional seeding.

“Shinsei” is a new potato chipping variety that was bred by the Hokkaido Agricultural Research Center, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO). This variety was selected from a population derived from the cross between the female parent “98009-8” and the male parent “00045-4” conducted in 2005. Both parent lines were with good chipping quality and resistance to the golden potato cyst nematode. “Shinsei” also shows resistance to the golden potato cyst nematode. The senescence date of “Shinsei” is slightly later than that of “Toyoshiro” and earlier than that of “Snowden”. Its maturity is classified into “medium early”, in the same category as “Toyoshiro”. The marketable yield of “Shinsei” is almost the same that of “Toyoshiro” and less than that of “Snowden”. Its starch value is slightly higher than that of “Toyoshiro” and higher than that of “Snowden”. Chip quality of “Shinsei” is better than that of “Toyoshiro” and “Snowden” after harvest until June with long-term storage under low temperature. In addition to, “Shinsei” is suitable for the storage under ethylene. Therefore, “Shinsei” is expected to contribute to the stable supply of raw materials for the processing chip from February to June when domestically produced potato materials shortage occurs. It is also expected that “Shinsei” can be widespread mainly in Hokkaido area replacing “Toyoshiro” and “Snowden”.

Two novel rice cultivars, ‘Fukuhibiki Kan 1’ and ‘Eminoaki Kan 1,’ were developed through backcrossing using ‘lcd-kmt2’ and ‘Fukuhibiki’ or ‘Eminoaki,’ started in 2012. In 2019 and 2020, the resultant lines, ‘OuuIL1’ and ‘OuuIL3,’ were evaluated to confirm their remarkably low cadmium absorption and high homogeneity. In 2021, the lines were officially registered as ‘Fukuhibiki Kan 1’ and ‘Eminoaki Kan 1’ by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. ‘Fukuhibiki Kan 1’ and ‘Eminoaki Kan 1’ exhibit identical characteristics to ‘Fukuhibiki’ and ‘Eminoaki,’ respectively, including heading date, harvesting time, culm length, panicle length, panicle number, grain yield, eating quality, and disease resistance. Notably, the cadmium concentrations in the grain and straw of ‘Fukuhibiki Kan 1’ and ‘Eminoaki Kan 1’ were substantially lower than those of ‘Fukuhibiki’ and ‘Eminoaki’ respectively, and comparable to that of ‘Koshihikari Kan 1’ in field and pot tests. These cultivars are expected to contribute to the southern Tohoku region, where requiring cadmium mitigation countermeasures are needed.

The vase life of cut ornamental flowers is important breeding target in determining their quality and consumers’ preference. As the vase life of cut dahlia (Dahlia variabilis) flowers is very short, we initiated a research breeding program in 2014 to improve it. We chose 22 commercial cultivars as initial breeding materials, and repeatedly crossed and selected promising offspring with long vase life for three generations, from 2014 to 2018. Third-generation selected line 828-18, which has beautiful gradation flower color with a pink and white center, and line 937-C58 (‘Namahage Cute’ × second-generation selected line 628-48) with deep pink flowers were judged to be the most suitable as new cultivars with long vase life. We registered these cultivars with Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and released them as ‘Eternity Peach’ and ‘Eternity Shine’. These two new dahlia cultivars had genetically determined long vase lives of 6.4 to 12.3 days (1.2 to 2.2 times the vase life of a standard cultivar, ‘Kamakura’) in distilled water, 9.1 to 12.1 days (1.4 to 2.0 times the vase life of ‘Kamakura’) in GLA (10 g·L⁻¹ glucose, 0.5 ml·L⁻¹ kathon CG, and 50 mg· L⁻¹ aluminum sulfate) under 23 ℃, 12-h photoperiod, and 70% RH conditions in 2020 and 2021. Moreover, flower of ‘Eternity Shine’ had low sensitivity to ethylene (no petal abscission upon 10 µL·L^-1 ethylene treatment in 2020 test). Cut flowers cultivated at five locations nationwide with different cultivation seasons in 2020 and 2021 also showed similar long vase life, clearly indicating that the long vase life of our three cultivars were not due to the environment but the characteristics of cultivars.

The introduction of cultivars with lower chilling requirements is considered as a countermeasure against the northward movement of peach cultivation areas and the delay in breaking endodormancy and awakening due to the effects of global warming. In this study, we conducted a four-year survey using cuttings of cultivars and selected lines that are thought to have lower chilling requirements and clarified their chilling and heat requirements. The chilling requirements of the test plants varied from 225 to 862 for CH and from 346 to 880 for CU, both of which were lower than those of the major cultivars. ‘TropicSnow’ had 250 CH and 384 CU, and ‘Momo Daigi Tsukuba 1’ had 592 CH and 706 CU. The heat requirement ranged from 4694 to 5893 for GDH. ‘TropicSnow’ had 5278 GDH, and ‘Momo Daigi Tsukuba 1’ had 4965 GDH and tended to be lower for rootstock cultivars.