This year as well, rows of ``stick racks'' for drying rice in the sun have begun to line up in rice fields in the Aomori and Tsugaru regions.

In the Tsugaru region, it is customary to dry rice in the sun using the ``bokake'' method, in which a single stick is erected and rice is stacked alternately on top of each other. Nowadays, drying using a dryer is the mainstream, but many farmers use ``bokake'' to dry their rice in the sun, mainly for home use or in small paddy fields.

This year, as temperatures were higher than usual, harvesting is expected to be earlier. In Aomori Prefecture, the weather is expected to arrive about 10 days earlier than normal.

A man in his 40s who is a rice farmer in Inakadate Village said, ``It's still a lingering heat and rice harvesting is going to be difficult.We don't make stick racks anymore, but when I see the stick racks again this year, I feel like autumn is coming.'' talk.

A woman in her 40s who was visiting from Nagoya for sightseeing said with a smile, ``There was a scenery of sun-drying that was different from Aichi, and that alone was refreshing.I came here thinking that Aomori was cooler than Nagoya, but Nagoya is cooler.'' show.