The QKC Guys were in bright and early this morning packing up the koi and heading out the the ZNA Potomac Show
I’m not going to ruin the suprise of what koi are coming, so make sure you stop over to booth and check them out!
Best of LUCK to all the NISEI KOI in the show!!!!!
Koi being caught for the show as the sun is rising
IF you can make it to the show, you can follow the show at www.koi-bito.com
We here at Quality Koi, look forward all year to the harvest season and try to enjoy every minute of it!
Here’s Mat watching the koi as they are pulled in.
New hands, Chuck and James, getting some practice before the Big Event in October!
For those who know our Lab Cadbury, no suprise that she gets the first look at the koi! Does she approve???
Mat spends some time with Hannah while he culls thru the Kohaku – never to early to learn
Below are a few pictures of the Sanke from when they were first culled at 2inches on July 13th and harvested on Sept 1st at 8-10 inches
Sanke #1 July 13 2inches, Sept 1st 10 inches
Sanke #2 July 13th 2 inches, Sept 1st 8.5 inches
The 2010 Sanke have been harvested.
With previously being strickly culled, the koi were harvested at 8-10″
Harvest time is finally here at the Nisei Koi Farm. Many are looking foward to your Main Event Harvest in October, but it takes us many weeks to bring all the koi we have growing in the mud ponds into the greenhouses.
We started harvest with our 2010 Kohaku
The koi have been harvested at 4-7 inches
We found this spawn to be sucessful. Not only did we get a number of koi of high quality, this was the first use of the Female Parent. The use of this female is the start of the new kohaku line. This spawn did produce young with the characteristics we were hoping for. These koi will be set aside as future parents for the next generation of this kohaku line.
In a perfect koi world we would spend all our time with the fish, but other jobs need to be done to keep the farm running.
Dan is going thru some reclaimed wood that was sent to the farm. The good wood will be used for future structures here on the farm. Wasp have nested in the wood, so Dan had to suit up to do the job!
Chuck has been busy clearing and grading another spot on the farm. Ummm…what is Mat thinking of putting there????
For a short period in the season there is a week or so when there is no culling to be done. We use this time to get caught up with farming jobs that have had to be set aside during breeding and culling time.
Over the past few years we have had pest on the farm that have caused major damage to our mud ponds. This has caused many mud ponds to be come unusable.
In order to fix the mud ponds wire mesh will need to be placed on the sides of the berms and new clay will be used to reform the ponds.
Most of this work will be done once harvest is completed, but due to wet weather over the fall and winter monthes, we have decided to use this dry weather for mining the clay need to reform the ponds and stock pile it until fall.
To do this HUGE job in a very short time, we had to bring in the BIG Machines.
1 excuvator and 2 dump trucks are needed for the job.
Untouched ground in the back of the farm was the site to mine for clay
2 of our damaged Tosai ponds have been opened up and are being used to store the clay until we are ready to use it.
The guys will work thru the weekend to complete this job and back to koi farming on Monday!
Be sure to check out our online catalog. New koi are available! Koi 12in starting at only $150 and Free Shipping!!!
The breeding of our Kikokuryu was on Jun 22nd.
We used to males to breed with her. One a Doitsu Kujaku and the other a Yamabuki Butterfly to add more variety into our butterfly line.
The first cull of the spawn was done Aug 4th. Here a few shots of some babies.
On June 22nd our Gin Rin Showas were breed.
We used a Female Gin Rin Showa bred by the Nisei Koi Farm in 2005
Female Gin Rin Showa
And we used 3 males
The first male was bred by Toshio Sakai of the Matsunosuke blood line. We recieved them in 2008 ship of tosai for us to growout and find future parents from.
The second male used is our #1 Male Magoi Showa, supplied by Toshio Sakai. This koi has “New Sumi” and was used in this breeding to improve the sumi quality with in our Gin Rin Showa
The third of the the males used in this spawning was a Long Fin Kin Matsuba. We introduced him into the spawn to make long fin Gin Rin Kin Showa, along with other varieties.
Outlook from this breeding is to produce large (with the infuence of Magoi) high quality Gin Rin Showa
The first cull was on July 27th 2010
