IBARAKI, April 12 — A row of cherry trees along an irrigation channel in Tsukubamirai, Ibaraki Prefecture, are now in full bloom.
The row of cherry trees, made up mainly of some 450 Somei-yoshino variety trees, extends roughly 1.8 kilometers on the embankments of the irrigation canal managed by the Fukuoka Dam Land Improvement District, a local irrigation association.
Local residents cherish the blossoms, calling them the Fukuoka Dam cherry blossoms.
The Fukuoka Dam takes water from the Kokai River that runs along the border of the cities of Tsukubamirai and Joso in Ibaraki Prefecture. It supplies water to approximately 30 square kilometers of rice fields in the two cities and the city of Toride in the prefecture.
The area has been known as Yawara Sanmangoku, a rich grain-growing region developed by building a dam and an irrigation channel in the early 17th century.
Toshiaki Suzuki, 58, an employee of an agricultural corporation who was applying herbicides on the banks of rice fields near the channel, said, “I’m attached to the cherry blossoms. They are famous and people come from far away to see them.”
This year, the cherry blossoms bloomed later than usual, coming at the busiest time of the year for farmers.
Pink cherry blossoms are blooming on the trees along an irrigation waterway that takes water from the Kokai River (right) in Tsukubamirai, Ibaraki Prefecture.
“If they had reached full bloom in March, I could have gone to see them closely,” Suzuki said regretfully.