[ppp]

Many of you live in the US and I see that many of you buy locally bred koi. I hope I won't be ruffling too many feathers if I ask the question of how good US bred kois are, relative to Japanese bred kois. I realise that most US breeders are also members of this forum and will be reading the replies to this post too, so I'm not sure if posters will be totally honest here.

I think from any breeding season, there will be some very good koi coming out. Just how good are they? Is the quality high enough, say, for a US-bred gosanke to win GC at the AJKS one day? Never say never, I guess. Two years ago, nobody could have imagined that the AJKS GC would be owned by non-Japanese.

Locally bred kois will always be cheaper than imported ones from Japan, like for like. Shipment charges is one, but not the only reason, I think. Do Americans buy US-bred koi solely because they are more affordable? Or is it because the quality is better than Japanese koi?

You may also want to be specific about certain types of koi which American breeders are better at breeding, eg Ogons, Asagis?

There are koi breeders in Malaysia too, but their standards are far far below those from Japan.