By: Henry Wei

On July 31, 2022, Yoshiharu Watanabe, a gardener in Japan, harvested a clover with the highest number of leaves recorded. 4 leaf clovers mean good luck in Ireland, so people think he is the luckiest man alive. He beat the world record by 7 leaves.

Clovers are normal plants that grow everywhere. They come usually with 3 to 6 leaves. Watanabe used cross pollination to get the colver with the most leaves. Cross pollination is when you put the pollen of one plant to another kind of plant. He used the clovers with the most leaves and bred them. He started with a clover patch in his garden, and added clovers with four or more leaves that he found outside. A few years ago, he grew a 20-leaf clover, which made his next goal to attempt breaking the world record. He allows them to naturally pollinate and pollinates by hand to

Counting the leaves on the clover took a long time. Each leaf was labeled with a small number. It took over an hour to count all of the leaves. Clovers usually have three leaves. A four-leaf clover is a lucky charm. A survey in 2017 says that the chance of getting one is 1 in 10000. Finding a five-leaf clover is even rarer, with the chance being one in 24,000.

In conclusion, Yoshiharu Watanabe’s achievement shows his gardening skills. His record-breaking clover is proof that cross pollination can work to produce interesting phenomenon in plants. Ashe continues to make clovers, he will inspire more gardeners.

Image Credit by SHVETS production