The 2019 Harvest was quite mind-blowing.
And this year's harvest continued the trend. Please excuse my excitement, but I'm obsessed with this fish.:)
I had hoped that the hundred plus ki shusui that were hatched in this nursery pond in 2017, would have spawned this year. I thought that due to the thick layer of duckweed covering 80% of the pond's surface, we just couldn't see the long-awaited offspring. But after John Clark seined the pond, we found that there were no fry at all.
Yes, I was disappointed. But the good news was that the adults were now just six months shy of four years old.
Four years, I've been told, is the ideal age for breeding female koi. Their eggs are plumper and there are more of them, and by four y.o., one could see how the mature fish looks. And by the third generation of the line, one can kind of judge which traits might be passed on to the next generation.
Now, our second generation of line bred ki shusui are on the cusp of year four. Our objective this October was to sort the too-many candidates for parents of the third generation. I had hoped to winnow down the herd to the best six or eight and return them to the nursery to grow on for a hoped for 2021 spawn.
On October 20, 2020, John pulled the pond, and when the koi had been sorted, there was a total of 113 koi. We moved quickly, choosing those with potential to pass on the desirable shusui genes with yellow markings (ki rather hi) overlaid on a pale blue to white ground.
Sorting for conformation, full zipper and lustrous skin and markings, we eliminated all but 16 candidates to be returned to the nursery. That is three times the number I'd planned to retain, but still, I'd reduced the fish load in the pond and John and I had a new plan.
Namely, we will pull the nursery pond again in May 2021. Pick the six to eight oyagoi of the sixteen and set them aside in net baskets while we drained and limed the pond. Then, wait a few days, refill the pond, and put the chosen fish back into the nursery.
This is the current plan.(!)
I've posted this year's 113 in this column and along the right-hand side of the page. See the selection of the chosen 16 in a tub.
On the left-hand side are snapshots from pulls in the Big and Middle ponds.
As I write this at the end of November 2020, the weather is in the 40s F and the "kids" are sleeping in the mud. It was a successful year for the ki shusui project and I'm hoping that in 2021 we will have another "mother lode" of ki shusui fry. Of course, as always, it's up to the fish.
See you here in May. :)
