YAMATSURI, Fukushima Prefecture--Amid the troubled and struggling Fukushima Prefecture--home to the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant--a beautiful new flower strain has bloomed this fall, symbolizing hope.
YAMATSURI, Fukushima Prefecture--Amid the troubled and struggling Fukushima Prefecture--home to the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant--a beautiful new flower strain has bloomed this fall, symbolizing hope.
The new strain of the Luculia flower, dark pink and sweet in fragrance, is named "Remake."
At a time when a number of florists have been forced to suspend their businesses because of the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, the developers adopted the name as a prayer of hope for resuscitation of their industry.
The flower was developed by the "Yamatsuri Hachimono Kenkyukai" (Yamatsuri potted plant research association), a group of farmers here, which took about 10 years to produce a deep pink through a succession of cross-breeding and selection.
The group initially planned to put 10,000 pots for sale in autumn 2012. Then came the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake and the nuclear accident it triggered. The group, in the hope of sending out something new from Fukushima Prefecture at such a gloomy time, hustled to prepare 2,000 pots for sale.
The pots sold in the blink of an eye when they were shipped to Tokyo in early September as gifts for the Respect-for-the-Aged Day (third Monday in September). "We thought it was a promising sign," said Yoshihiro Kanazawa, a 56-year-old member of the potted plant association.
Flowers are a major product of Fukushima Prefecture. According to sources, including the JA Shin Fukushima, a local agricultural cooperative, flower sales plummeted 40 percent in March compared to the same time a year ago, but have remained roughly on last year's level thereafter.
However, about 140 florists have had to give up planting flowers on about 30 hectares of land in the no-entry zone within a radius of 20 kilometers of the nuclear plant and in the "planned evacuation zone" outside that radius.
In Iitate, one of the largest production bases of Eustoma (Texas Bluebell) flowers in the prefecture, about 80 florists were forced into suspending their businesses, as the entire village was forced to evacuate.
"Many people in the planned evacuation zone are considering closing down businesses," Kanazawa said.
The next shipment of the Remake is scheduled for next autumn. Grafting work will begin by the end of this year for a planned shipment of 10,000 pots.
"If this enterprise gets on track, embattled florists may be able to use it as a foothold on which to rebuild their businesses," Kanazawa said.