Grain Rain穀雨

Grain Rain (穀雨, Gǔ Yǔ) is the sixth of the twenty-four solar terms, falling at the instant the sun reaches 30° of ecliptic longitude — usually between 19 and 21 April. The name pairs rain with grain: seasonal rainfall at this point in the year is traditionally read as what the newly sown crops need to establish themselves.

It is also the last term of spring by the traditional grouping, and the midpoint of the 辰 month that Pure Brightness opened. Once Grain Rain has passed, the next term on the calendar — Beginning of Summer — is a month-opener, and the season turns.

Astronomically, Grain Rain closes out the six spring terms, sitting between Pure Brightness and Beginning of Summer. In the agricultural calendar it traditionally marks the last of the reliable spring rains before the drier, hotter stretch of early summer, and has long been treated as a closing marker for the spring planting window.

It completes the traditional "late spring" pairing with Pure Brightness, the final of the three two-term seasonal groupings that make up spring in this system.

Grain Rain is a 氣 — a mid-month term — so it does not change the month pillar, the year pillar, or any other pillar in the chart. A birth on Grain Rain carries 辰 (Chén) in the month pillar, the same branch that has applied to every birth since Pure Brightness opened the month.

This follows the same pattern confirmed by running this site's engine across the full set of twelve 氣 in 2026: none of them coincides with a month-branch change. Grain Rain is the sixth term overall and the third 氣 in the sequence, and like the others it is a waypoint inside a month rather than a boundary between two.

The next actual change to the month pillar does not happen until Beginning of Summer, the following term, opens the 巳 month.

Grain Buds (小滿) and Grain in Ear (芒種) — The twenty-four solar terms. Three terms in a row share "Grain" in their English names — Grain Rain, Grain Buds, and Grain in Ear — which makes them easy to mix up. Grain Rain and Grain Buds are both 氣 and change no pillar; Grain in Ear, the one after Grain Buds, is a 節 and does.