| There will probably be a major US show GC, US breed GC sometime in this decade. There a couple big limitations. One is there are really on 4 good US breeders. Among that group some some weather constraits based on location, 2 of them are really part-time businesses, and abilty to import top level stock (availability, costs, and fear of KHV). They also face issues b/c of the american market. Most of fish sold here are tosai, so that is primary market. They simply cannot afford to raise a good number of fish 3+ years in big water because they can not get the high dollar prices for domestic koi in this range. Probably the biggest thing is they (US Breeders as a group) have not done a good job of putting there top fish in the hands of the better hobbiest, who is capable of raising and conditioning the fish for that level of competition.
Ryan S. |