David's Farm Blog

Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan .  Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colors of rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields.
As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.

A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants, the colors created by using different varieties, in Inakadate in Japan.  The largest and finest work is grown in the Aomori village of Inakadate , 600 miles north  of Toyko, where the tradition began in 1993. More than 150,000 visitors come to Inakadate, where just 8,700 people live, every summer to see the extraordinary murals.
Each year hundreds of volunteers and villagers plant four different varieties of rice in late May  across huge swathes of paddy fields.

The farmers plant little purple and yellow leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green leafed tsugaru roman variety to create the coloured patterns between planting and harvesting in September

Closer to the image, the careful placement of thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen.