The timing of the canopy phenology onset (CPO hereafter) indicates the initiation of the growing season, with rapid increases in exchange rates of carbon dioxide and water vapor between vegetation and atmosphere. The CPO is regarded as a potential indicator of ecosystem responses to global warming, but the CPO shows considerable spatial variation depending on the species composition and local temperature regime. at a given geographic location. In this study, we evaluated the utility of satellite observation data for detection of the timing of the CPO. Leaf area indices (LAI) obtained from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrora-diometer (MODIS) were utilized to detect and map the onset dates from 2001 to 2006. The reliability of MODIS-based onset dates was evaluated with ground measured cherry blossom flowering data from national weather stations. The MODIS onset dates preceded the observed flowering dates by 8 days and were linearly related with a correlation coefficient of 0.58 (p < 0.05). In spite of the coarse spatial (1 km) and temporal (8 days) resolutions of MODIS LAI, the MODIS-based onset dates showed reasonable ability to predict flowering dates.