Torazo tosai harvests - Friday morning
Posted 12 Sep 2009 - 14:29 by Mark Gardner
Torazo is perhaps the first of the breeders to start harvesting their tosai, as I type this I don't think I've ever actually asked him why he harvests earlier than most who won't start until next week.
He actually started on Thursday harvesting some Sanke and Kohaku from early spawnings. Yesterday he was harvesting the Sanke offspring from one of his Sanke that took the 80bu Kokugyo at the 2007 All Japan Koi Show. Below you can see Tsuyoshi-san and Hiroi Seiji carrying up the bank at her harvest in October 2008.
The tosai ponds harvested are in Katakai, just a few yards from where I'd cycled the previous evening to the firework display - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/521.
The first few pics below are pretty self explanatory.
Quite a few people stopped by for a look as Tsuyoshi-san sorted through. The gentleman in the middle next to Tsuyoshi-san is Kyuichi Hoshino of Marukyu Koi Farm in Takezawa who took 2nd place at last weekend's Shinsaku Kanshokai - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/514. He was also at Hiroi Seiji's harvest last year, you can see him here - http://yamakoshi.blogspot.com/2008/10/little-bit-gutted-this-morning.html
The picture below is a general group shot of some of the Tategoi that were sorted from the harvest.
I really like interesting head patterns and I have to say there were no shortage amongst this harvest.
The 3 Koi below are a few of the 'special' examples that Tsuyoshi-san selected out to be photographed. The first 2 are 29cm in length, not bad for 4 months old!
The one below is perhaps my favourite from the harvest.
More Koi were harvested in the afternoon, I'll write about those later. A full more detailed report on the Torazo tosai harvest will appear in issue 2 of Niigata Nishikigoi Digest.
