In recent years, the word "koi" has exploded on online social platforms and has become synonymous with luck. When a person's luck suddenly improves, TA will be said to be "koi possessed", and if it has been good, it is "koi physique".
In fact, as the birthplace, koi has already enjoyed a high status as early as ancient times on the mainland, and it is often used as a symbol of ceremonial exchanges between kings during the Spring and Autumn Period. Today, ornamental fish has become one of the important components of the recreational fishery, with a huge market at home and abroad, and koi is one of the best. It is reported that a tail of fish in a high-grade koi pond can be sold for hundreds of thousands or even millions!
On the occasion of the 2nd Jiangsu Aquaculture High-quality Development Summit, Aquatic Frontier and Jiangsu Fisheries Association carried out joint research, and came to Suzhou Suxin Ornamental Fish Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Suxin Koi" or "Suxin"), which has the largest reserves of koi seed fish and complete system construction in China, visited the company's Suxin Koi Park located in Suzhou Wujiang Modern Agricultural Industrial Park, and had in-depth exchanges with general manager Zhong Yi.
Suxin Koi was established in November 2012, has built four bases of fish breeding, breeding, breeding and sales in Suzhou Wangshan, Chenghu, Huabo Park, Wujiang and other places, of which Wujiang base is the company's most modern facilities and largest production base, and is also the country's leading cement pond koi breeding base, successfully realized koi greenhouse industrialized circulating water aquaculture technology.
Every high-quality koi needs to go through layers of tests
"Koi, Guzhen, Suzhou, just these words are connected to make people feel full of charm." In Suxin Koi Park, a colorful tail, beautiful figure and strong koi attracted the attention of the research team. Zhong Yi said that many people may simply think that these koi fish have a high appearance, but they do not know that each of them has withstood the most rigorous screening test.
It is understood that from mid-April to early May every year, koi seed fish enter the breeding period, and a fish can produce more than 200,000 eggs at a time. After the spray grows into small fry of about 4 cm, they will be screened for the first time, and during the entire growth process, there are three such selections. "Koi screening has a very high elimination rate, 95%, 60% and 50% respectively, and it is completely manual and completely manual." Zhong Yi said with a smile that she once insisted on being by the pond for nearly 12 hours a day for a month to screen the fry, because she needed to carefully observe the pattern, color and other characteristics of the fish, and the fry were still small, and her eyes were spent at the end of the day.
According to reports, the criteria for judging koi mainly look at three points, one is that the body color should be distinct, the cut edge (color junction) is obvious, and there can be no transitional color; the second is to look at the pattern on the back of the fish; The third is to look at the body shape, a good body shape is as tight as a "meat stick". In various competitions, body size also tends to account for nearly half of the score.
The original intention is to let Chinese koi swim on the world stage
According to Dr. Yuan Jiandong, the founder of Suxin Koi, the culture of koi fish has been with China for 5,000 years, and it has continued uninterrupted to this day, which is a very proud thing. It is a pity that although koi culture originated in China, after spreading to neighboring Japan, it developed rapidly in the 18th and 19th centuries, and its ornamental properties were greatly improved, and the famous varieties "Showa Tricolor" and "Red and White" were born at that time.
The red and white goddess, is the first named carp of Suxin Koi, is the overall champion of the 17th Scales Friends Club, and the overall champion of the 18th China Koi Competition, picture source: China Koi Club
Zhong Yi said that the most common koi market is the colorful koi in the attractions or park pools, which are known in the industry as "earthen bubbles", which are inexpensive and popular with the public. However, at the high-end level, the domestic market is basically occupied by Japan, especially in recent years, the strong domestic demand has "speculated" the price of high-end koi in Japan, and the auction price of millions or even tens of millions is frequent.
Cultivating domestic high-end koi has always been Dr. Yuan Jiandong's goal. "The reason why Suxin can become the head enterprise in the domestic koi industry is because the company is not only a production and sales fishery, but also shoulders the mission of solving the problem of lack of high-quality seed sources for Chinese koi, building its own bloodline system, and realizing large-scale production and breeding in the future, so as to allow more high-quality Chinese koi to swim to the world stage, which is also the original intention of the company's founder, Dr. Yuan Jiandong." Zhong Yi said proudly.
Suxin koi is part of the star breed fish
Aquatic Frontiers learned that founder Yuan Jiandong graduated from Peking University with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and graduated from the State University of New York in 1998 with a doctorate. Although his achievements in the field of biopharmaceuticals attracted the attention of the international academic community, he chose to enter the industry, engaged in the research and development of antiviral drugs and gene sequencing, as well as gene chips. In 2001, Dr. Yuan Jiandong resigned and returned to China to start a business, founded Borui Biomedical (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. in his hometown of Suzhou, and was listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2019.
It is reported that the outside world has objected to Dr. Yuan Jiandong's personal hobby of spending more than 30 million yuan on buying and breeding koi in recent years. He said calmly: "The koi I raised is the result of targeted breeding of gene mutations, and it requires genetic bioinformatics analysis of gene sequences with biological software, which is as challenging as making innovative drugs." In 2020, he selected and bred an improved koi masterpiece, Ichio 90 Sakai Taisho, which was screened and bred by whole genome sequencing (GWAS), and won the 49th All Japan Koi Koi Product Appraisal Big Fish Overall Award.
90 Sakai Taisho won the 49th All Japan Koi Koi Tasting Competition Big Fish Total Winner, Image source: Nakakoi Koi Club
Traditional koi combined with modern technology,
Storm the champion fishery
Zhong Yi introduced that similar to the family method, high-end koi are produced and classified according to the tire, which is more difficult than the traditional unified goods model. Breeding fish is a serious threshold on the road to domestic production. "Well-known koi do not necessarily produce high-quality offspring, so breeding fish are extremely rare. In our breeding process, one litter, or even several litters, may not produce a seed fish. ”
In recent years, Sushin Koi has spent nearly 100 million yuan to collect the highest bloodline of the world's top fishing farms such as Sakai and Ōichi based on the Japanese koi bloodline. Up to now, the company has more than 200 breeding mother fish and more than 400 male fish imported from Japan's top fishing grounds, making it the largest breeding fish fishery in Japan. On the basis of a large number of excellent gene banks, Suxin has bred a batch of high-quality "domestic koi" through biological methods such as gene pairing, breeding and cultivation.
According to reports, Su Xin also specially invited experts such as Gui Jianfang, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese fish genetics and breeder, Wei Baozhen, president of the China Recreational Fishing Association, to "teach on-site" and guide scientific breeding. "There are many mysteries and methods in fish genes and genetics, and the use of technologies such as female nucleus development to stabilize excellent genes by using a large number of imported high-quality parents is the key to domestic koi becoming world-leading." Gui Jianfang said.
"Although there is still a gap between us and Japan's 100-year history, this gap is narrowing. Facts have proved that standing at the height of knowledge, Suxin has achieved a significant increase in koi production rate and excellent rate. In the Koi Contest, fish from China and fish from Japan have been able to compete on the same stage. But for us, Suxin hopes that the domestic koi will not only win one championship, but can achieve a wide range of coverage and become a champion fishing ground, which also puts forward higher requirements for our strength. ”
Zhong Yi is full of confidence in this. "The company's knowledge and breeding level of koi is absolutely better than any fishery in China. We only have one hard wound, and that is that koi need time to grow. A champion fish must first grow for six years to reach 90 cm. If nothing else, we will be able to have three or five real 90cm fish in two or three years. ”
"Koi is the ceiling of ornamental fish in China and the world. Unlike goldfish and arowana, koi can be generalized. The ancients used to say that solo happiness is not as good as everyone's happiness. When there are several one-meter fish in your pond, the impact and beauty they bring are not a single fish to look at. ”
Zhong Yi said that on the basis of doing a good job in the construction of the echelon of fish breeding, the company also tries to share these high-quality koi with the outside world. "Koi's play is mainly auctions and competitions, and the company is actively expanding the e-commerce field while actively carrying out offline marketing. In the past year, the company has also actively carried out various live broadcasts, hoping to let more people love koi and understand koi culture