After 12 years in quarantine, these Japanese Cherry Blossom trees can finally be planted

Cherry Blossom trees that were gifted from Japan 12 years ago are finally going to be planted in Cincinnati.

The city of Adachi gifted the Queen City 10 Cherry Blossom trees as part of the Krohn Conservatory's Butterflies of Japan show in 2010. However, a complicated quarantine process delayed their arrival. 

The trees entered the United States that same year, but due to their type, had to be placed in the National Plant Germplasm Quarantine Center outside Washington, D.C.,  regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where they were tested for viruses.

Unfortunately, three springs in a row, the trees tested positive for various viruses, preventing them from reaching Cincinnati.

But, since the trees were an international gift, and considering the historical significance of Japan gifting trees to the U.S., staff at the quarantine center went "above and beyond" to make sure the trees could arrive in Cincinnati, said Andrea Schepmann, former Krohn Conservatory director.

To do this, staff at the center conducted a tissue culture series, which entailed taking small cuttings of stems or tips of leaves from each of the seven varieties of trees and treating the infection. 

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"They took minute pieces of tissue and put them through heat treatment and various things to try to knock down the virus until they could get little baby seedlings that are of the exact same variety, genetically pure and virus-free," Schepmann said.

From there, staff members grafted the healthy pieces of tissue onto new rootstalks found in the U.S., creating virus-free trees of the same variety. 

This week, 12 years after the trees were originally gifted, the first two healthy varieties were received by the Cincinnati Park Board.

"We hope to get many of the other varieties," Schepmann said. "Once the whole process is completed, the original trees will probably be destroyed, which is very sad, but it is because they will have succeeded in creating for us what we need, which is the virus-free trees."

The two trees are still small and will need to be "babied" at the Krohn Conservatory for a while. The plan is to eventually plant them, and their virus-free friends, in Eden Park. 

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“We would like to thank everyone who worked on (the) quarantine process and raising of graft branches we sent for such a long time, especially under (the) difficult situation of (the) Corona pandemic," Adachi Mayor Yayoi Kondo said in a press release. "We hope that these cherry trees will bloom many flowers and help Cincinnatians have (a) glimpse of Japanese Spring.” 

The newly arrived Cherry Blossom trees carry on a long-held tradition of Japanese tree gifting in Cincinnati. Ault Park received 1,000 Cherry Blossom trees from Japan in the 1930s. In 2008, the Japan America Society planted another 151 Somei Yoshino Cherry trees in the grove at Ault Park.