The luckiest man alive bred his own 63 leaf clover
The world’s luckiest man has been unveiled – and no, he’s not Irish.
Finding a four-leaf clover is a rare occurrence and considered as good luck to all those who discover one.
But if that is the case, then Japanese man Yoshiharu Watanabe is the most fortunate man in the world.
Mr Watanabe has broken the Guinness World Record for finding the clover with the most leaves. Well, to be more precise, he has created the clover with the most leaves in a move that could rival Dr Frankenstein himself.
The record-setting plant has 63 leaves, which is seven more than the previous record holder, a 56-leaf clover grown by Shigeo Obara, also from Japan.
Mr Watanabe, 45, hopes that his luck can spread and help other people.
‘People say that a four-leaved clover brings you happiness, so it would be great if this 63-leaved clover would bring surprise and pleasure to people,’ he said.
Mr Watanabe has been breeding clovers at home in Nasushiobara, Japan, since 2012, and now has several clover patches around his garden.
‘Clover is a common plant found everywhere, so whenever I saw a four-leaved, five-leaved, or seven-leaved clover near paddy fields or parks, I took it back home,’ he said.
Then he let the plants naturally pollinate.
‘The plant is pretty strong and you don’t have to do anything to it, so I just left them, then they just prospered.’
After a few years, he found a 20-leaf clover in his garden, and began thinking that he could achieve the world record.
‘Since the number of leaves has increased year by year, I have been aiming for the Guinness World Records title ever since,’ he said.
He added: ‘It didn’t seem that easy, yet the leaves were growing in numbers – I thought I might eventually be able to break it.’
But as the bees were doing their thing and began pollinating the plants, Mr Watanabe also dabbled in selective breeding and began hand-pollinating the clovers.
By 2020, he had created a 49-leaf clover, and the following year, he increased the leaf count to 55 – one leaf short of matching the previous champion.
However, it wasn’t all plain sailing, and he experienced a number of setbacks.
‘Sometimes the number of leaves can go down, or sometimes you end up with the normal three-leaf clover,’ he explained. ‘We know that genetics are involved in a higher number of leaves, yet we don’t exactly know how it works.’
How to hand pollinate a plant
Mr Watanabe is hand pollinating white clovers, and it is possible to hand pollinate plants as a beginner.
In general, to pollinate a clover you need to wait until they are in their blooming stage – and you will need a small brush.
Using tweezers, you can remove the petals from the flowers of the clover, to expose the reproductive parts, and touch the brush against the stamens of the male flower to collect pollen.
Male bits of flowers have long thin filaments, and the pollen will be a fine, powdery substance that sticks to the brush.
Then dab the brush to the stigma of the female flower, and make sure the pollen grains stick to it.
Then repeat the process with the other flowers on the plant.
When he spotted his current record-setting plant and plucked it from the ground, a quick guess told him it would tie with the 56-leaf clover. But when he began to painstakingly count each leaf he was ‘very happy’ to discover he had broken the record.
‘Because the leaves are smaller than the standard clover that you know and love, it’s hard to count the number of leaves. When I counted this record-breaking clover, it took me over an hour,’ he said.
Now, we’ll have to wait and see if he decides to try to create an even bigger one.