RICE FIELDS OF JAPAN
Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in japan,
but this is no alien creation. The designs have been cleverly
planted. Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye.
Instead, different color 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.
Napoleon on horseback can be seen from the skies. This was
created by precision planting and months of planning by villagers
and farmers located in Inkadate, Japan.
Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife, Osen, whose
lives are featured on the television series Tenchijin,
appear in fields in the town of Yonezawa in Yamagata prefecture
of Japan.
This year, various artwork has popped up on other rice-farming
areas, such as this image of Doraemon and deer dancers.
The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and
yellow-leafed Kodaimai rice slong with their local green-leafed
Tsugaru, a Roman variety, to create the colored patterns in the
time between planting and harvesting in September.
The murals in Inkadate cover 1500, square meters of paddy
fields.
A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds
of thousands of rice plants. The colors are created by using
different varieties. This photo was taken in Inakadate, Japan.
From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have
to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a
glimpse of the work.
Closer to the image, the careful placement of the thousands of
rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen.
Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization
project, and idea that grew from meetings of the village committees.
The different varieties of rice plants grow alongside each other to
create the masterpieces. In the first nine years, the village office
workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year.
But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention.
In 2005, agreements between landowners allowed the creation of
enormous rice paddy art. A year later, organizers used computers to
precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varietied
that bring the images to life.
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