Magino Village: A Tale (1000年刻みの日時計 牧野村物語)

To the west of Mt. Tao, on a series of terraces

lies the small village of Magino.

For 13 years we've lived and grown rice here.

This film is the product of those years

Put together in one film.

I'm Shinsuke Ogawa, the director.

Narrating the film.

Every year

as rice flowers bloomed during summer

we filmed the process.

A late bloomer.

How's the stamen?

It's rising to the top. Right?

Just a little more.

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Yes, for the stamen to appear

it takes about 6-7 minutes.

yes

It comes out here.

Just a minute.

It's beautiful.

It's undulating.

It certainly is.

There's the stamen.

It's coming out, just a sec

Yes.

2nd camera!

The pollen emerges.

Onto the pistil.

Fertilization takes place.

The humidity is...

Sixty eight percent.

Temperature is 30°C

Humidity is 68% therefore,

the temperature should rise.

That's good for the stamen.

It's filming beautifully.

The stamen is extending.

It really climbs.

40 minutes have passed

Magino Village - A tale

A thousand Years of Lore.

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

ten

eleven

twelve

thirteen

fourteen

fifteen

sixteen

seventeen

eighteen

nineteen

twenty

twenty-one

twenty-two

twenty-three

twenty-four

twenty-five

26,27, 28, 29, 30.

How many?

Hm, here 30 bags.

Thirty? Yes.

You there?

Thirty-two.

Thirty-two? Thirty-two.

What's the total?

I've got 16. So...

16, 30, 32 ...

16...

78 bags.

78?

Right, 78 bags.

20 Kg to a bag.

60 Kg per bale.

3 bags in one bale That's 78 divided by 3.

That's 26 bales.

So 26 bales from this paddy.

How much per are? (100m²)

This paddy is 22 ares, so...

26 divided by 22 ares.

That's 11 8 bales per 1000m².

11.8, is it?

We started this paddy in...

in 1975

What was the harvest then?

In 1975 it was 10 bales per 1000m².

In 1976 we got 9 per 10 ares.

A very cool summer.

Last year - 1977

We got 11 bales per 10 ares.

With the 11.8 this year.

It's the best harvest in four years.

This map represents

our field after the harvest.

It's the water logistic of our land.

We don't need irrigation when we're harvesting.

We drain it 10 days prior.

But some areas don't drain well.

Where the water settles. They're marked in blue.

The white area shows good drainage.

Where the paddy is dry.

There is a great difference in harvest

between these wet and dry areas.

We calculated after harvesting.

This is the rate from the dry areas.

Getting 11.6 bales per 100m².

From this dry area

We're getting 12.1 per 1000m².

Looking at another dry spot.

This one here.

We're getting 11.7 per 1000m².

Meaning that...

the dry areas

give a harvest of 11.6 to 12.1.

Compared to the wet areas.

Here, where the irrigation enters.

We’re getting 8.3, here.

Compare this to the 12.1 area

that's nearly 4 bales difference.

Another example here. We're getting 8.9

Compare that and this one.

there is a 3 bale difference.

Meaning that there's a great difference in the

harvest from our wet and dry areas.

Growth rate is different too.

For example at the entrance here, where we got 8.3

the roots are rotten.

That's terrible!

Come here.

Look, they're putrid.

Pull it up and you can see.

Rotten roots.

Look at it.

Easy to uproot.

Very boggy, too.

They're all rotten here.

We put compost here to ferment the earth.

But it's so boggy.

The water too has a different color.

Can you tell the difference?

The water's putrid.

Yes, it stinks.

Easily uprooted too.

As bad as having no roots.

It's a bad spot.

Seriously, we should come up with something.

It's the same every year.

Every year, yeah.

It really is the worst spot.

Goes off every year.

We should really just work out why this happens.

The water simply can't escape.

It just stagnates.

It really does.

We'd better find out why.

It stinks.

Foul smell.

Like a cesspool.

Anyway, let's cut it.

The area where we got 8.3

is water-logged all year round.

Even when all else is drained. It's still soaked.

You can't walk in here, you get your feet bogged.

The soil smells rotten.

Like a cesspool.

Ideally, when you harvest rice, the roots.

should remain firmly in the ground

The plants here just pull right out.

There roots here, you can see they're black.

If you wash off the dirt and look at the roots

you can see they're mostly black.

This means they're dead.

They can't absorb nourishment or water.

Here, we have white roots

but these white ones will soon blacken and die too.

A few are brown, that means they're healthy.

But mostly black or white.

So basically, the root system is rotten.

This aerial photograph was taken in 1975

when we started the rice paddy

The fields are very regular.

This is ours, here.

Zooming in...

The grey and black areas represents

bad drainage and damp earth.

Now here, in a diagram form.