Today I have visited Isawa Nishikigoi Center, established by the famous Toshio Sakai. Although you do not hear a lot from the farm anymore, you should know that his influence in the Koi history is very big. His Matsunosuke bloodline with the crossbreeding of Magoi has resulted in massive improvements of growth and resistance of the Nishikigoi currently produced.
Toshio is the younger brother of Toshiyuki Sakai, who took over his fathers Yamamatsu Koi Farm in Yamakoshi. As he had his own ideas of Koi production, he wanted to do it differently and decided to move to Isawa, where good customers of the Yamamatsu Koi Farm told him it would be a good area to start a farm because of the warm water sources. And so he did. At the age of 18 (!) he bought a piece of land, made some concrete ponds, lived in a container on the ponds (!) and started to produce his Koi.
I had a long interview with Toshio Sakai and will share all of this information with you in another blog. For now you can enjoy of some snapshots I made throughout the day:
Toshio Sakai, now 63 years old
Mainly concrete ponds instead of mud ponds
Keeping ponds
Keeping ponds
The house of Toshio and his son Toshikatsu is directly beside the Koi house
The utmost important reason to start the farm in Isawa: warm water well with water of 18-19 degrees Celsius!
Private masterclass from Toshikatsu Sakai, more about this later!
Ultimate Beni?
