Hokkaido University (Sapporo, Hokkaido; President: Kiyohiro Hohkane; hereinafter referred to as Hokkaido University) and Mitsubishi Research Institute DCS Ltd (Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo; President: Takehiko Matsushita; hereinafter referred to as DCS) have started analysing spectral data from November 2022 in order to develop a new indicator to express the growing stage of rice plants. The analysis of spectral data was started in November 2022. Hokkaido University and DCS have been conducting joint industry-university research on smart agriculture since October 2021, and we will also commit to this joint research from 2023.