Re: seed import permits

In a message dated 11/28/01 11:37:32 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
coneh@qwest.net writes:

<< 
 *Can someone tell me why there are seldom replies (on List(s) anyway)to
 such a devastating (for plant seed companies & collectors)regulation??!
 *Are 'plant people' such mild mannered sorts that they just accept what
 is handed down..?
 *Do we not care what impact this will have on the small seed sources ?
 *Are we content with what the major seed houses have to offer?(if your
 not,& this continues, eventually that will be all there is to choose
 from).. >>

I will take a stab at this question, Connie.  First many of the list 
gardeners are already overwhelmed by the diversity that has become available 
in the last decade.  Remember when a devoted gardener could ID nearly 
anything in a border?  Today he is sent to the books and more often to a web 
search as books cannot keep up.

Many list gardeners have one area of interest and they have not enough time 
to study other areas or they do not possess the enviroment for every sort of 
plant now entering the country.  The interest remains keen, the space and 
time do not.

The most concerned are nurseries and seed sellers. Some gardeners specialize 
in a genus and they are concerned with availability.  More often than not, 
gardeners are generalists.

Gardeners believe that each year a new selection will be presented as the 
national catalogs have been printed in the past decade with many pages of new 
selections before the regular listings.  These same gardeners who are 
becoming more and more erudite on their passion for the garden do not have 
time to both garden and to lobby politicians.  In fact, it may be that 
lobbying politicians is an activity that squashes the pleasure in the garden. 
 We all are overcome with new products and new services so asking for even 
more will not be popular.

The issue is so diffused that unless one specific issue comes to the fore, 
gardeners and nurserymen will be unaware what is happening.  For example:   
If a grand improvement in cabbages was developed in, say Japan, and it was 
pulblicized that we could not have these cabbages because the seed was barred 
from entry, maybe a public question would be raised.  I use cabbages because 
farm seed (called economic seed) is more valuable in the US than ornamentals.

If a new and wonderful seed raised ornamental was developed or discovered it 
would not raise a public inquiry as quickly as a cabbage or a potato.

Hence, I would conclude that gardeners would vote for seed diversity between 
all countries ( barring those known to be pests or least at collecting data 
on new plants should they be pests)
if they were aware of the issue and had the time to inform themselves.  Life 
is complex in our new century so new problems are not exactly welcome.

Claire Peplowski
NYS z4

 

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