Let us know what it ends up costing you and how long the process takes if you do go down this road. I somehow have the feeling it will be neither cheap, nor speedy.
Good luck.
Hi: I will just do that when time comes to order. Thanks! Marc
Go to North American Scion Exchange on FB…its a group.
Its basically designed to do what you want.
“This is a place where people in the US and Canada can exchange scion wood, root stocks, fruit trees, and other plants”
I asked the same question in reverse on this group and my post was removed and i was sent a message by a moderator. Also a PM from a member here telling me that i was wrong to do so. So this group is no bueno for what you want… the FB group is exactly what you want.
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Hi Kris;
I couldn’t dream of receiving such a good answer/,reply until now… Thanks a Lot!
P.S. Not all Humans are good with diplomacy and this is why Humanity has suffered so many wars for so many millions of years and unfortunately: plus ça change, plus c’est pareil…
Marc
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It’s been mentioned several times before that going around import laws of countries puts food crops and farmers at risk. The cost of imported insect pests and diseases is enormous.
Citrus canker was eradicated twice from the U.S. costing taxpayers millions and destroying the livelihood of many farmers, only to be introduced again. The third eradication attempt, again cost millions, and livelihoods, but was finally deemed unfeasible by the USDA in 2006. Now citrus farmers just live with the losses from citrus canker. The only means of introduction was illegally importing scionwood, or illegally bringing in fruit from an infected country.
Likewise when plum pox was introduced to the U.S. in PA and spread to NY, and MI. It took 20 years and the destruction of millions of trees of stone fruit, and of course millions of dollars to eradicate the disease.
It was thought by experts in the field that plum pox entered the U.S. from illegally imported infected plant materials.
Canada attempted to eradicate plum pox, but was unsuccessful. Their farmers are forced to live with it, and suffer the losses associated with it.
These are just a couple examples. There are multitudes of similar examples. It always ends up with farmers suffering large economic losses, higher pesticide usage, and higher costs to consumers.
In the historical past there were no rules importing plants (or animals for that matter) but there are also countless examples that this policy moved destructive insect pests and destructive diseases, as well as invasive plants, and animals, which destroyed native habitats.
Phytosanitary from state departments of agriculture are fairly meaningless. The inspections are merely visible inspections, detecting plants showing obvious symptoms, if that. I once received a peach tree with a visible crown gall. It had a state dept. of ag. phytosanitary certificate on the box.
Using legal channels to import plant materials from other countries is the only way to ensure the plant materials are free from potentially devastating diseases. Yes, it’s more expensive than just sending scionwood through the mail. And it’s much more time consuming, but it’s the law for good reason.
Here is a recent example where a farmer is fighting for compensation due to a citrus greening eradication program in Florida.
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Here is the purpose statement for NAFEX
Purpose
To aid and encourage fruit exploration in its broadest context.
North America is defined by NAFEX
Content should be focused on fruit growing in North America (United States, Canada and Mexico). When sharing related content from another person, group or page proper credit should be given in the post.
If you live in North America and have plants, seed or scion wood to sell, you can indicate you have those items available and invite people to direct message you. You can also share relevant content from your fruit growing business page.
A recent discussion on NAFEX was that black Nanking cherry is only available in Canada. So folks on there are getting it… and it looks like it has made it to this forum.
This is how we get things alot of the time… but nobody cares where it comes from as long as they can get it and grow it.
Yes, I understand that people have that point of view. But the argument you are making is effectively, some people, or even groups do it, so it’s OK. To which I would reply, what our mothers used to tell us, “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?” This line of argument is known as the ad populum fallacy (appeal to popularity).
I used to be a member of Nafex when they had an active discussion board (more than a decade ago). There were plenty of members who imported plant materials through APHIS, legally. There were plenty who recommended others do the same. It was from Nafex that I first learned about APHIS.
I don’t know how Canada’s plant inspection service works, but APHIS works with both amateurs and professionals to safely and legally import plant materials in the U.S.
I recognize I’m not going to change your mind, but the issue is very real to me. If our orchard got plum pox and were forced to destroy all the stone fruit trees, we would quit growing peaches and cherries, and maybe try to grow just apples for tree fruit. It would take many years to turn everything over and start producing tree fruit again. Government programs typically reimburse for the cost of the trees, but not all the lost revenue, which is where most of the cost occurs.
I remember talking with a large nursery owner over a decade ago, before plum pox was eradicated in the U.S. They were forced to destroy all their nursery stock and lease property at another location to try to stay in business, because their original nursery was located in the quarantine area. These are real issues which affect real people, not just some feel good moral grandstanding on my part.
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I am not making an argument…at least that is not my intention.
Im just saying that alot of the things that we as a group talk about on here were obtained by fruit hunters.
The most recent for example is the Black Nanking…which is already in the US. It will eventually be owned by someone on here from the USA and likely talked about on here and other places.
Im just saying that some of the cultivars that some of us grow and talk about on here…would not be possible if not for a fruit hunter of some sort…
I recently saw a youtube video of a very very popular guy that opened mail from a foreign country and his fig cuttings were wrapped in aluminum foil…which you can imagine make it much easier to bypass some robots or instruments.
Many many thousands of people will want that fig… and it will make it to this board if its not already here.
People will be happy.
I think thats how alot of things we grow works… i know so for some things.
If you guys want to get together and ban all these cultivars that is up to you… but people will still grow them and want them and enjoy them even with censure.
I like the story of the Peach… and their journey to the Native Americans.
The journey of the peach into the hands of Navajo and Puebloan people of the Southwest spanned continents and centuries. It led through times of great adversity. The story began in Zhejiang Province, China. That is where the peach originated and has been cultivated by Chinese people for thousands of years. The fruits were prized. About 2,000 years ago, silk traders and Greeks took them into Persia, and from there into Greece, Italy, and other temperate areas of Europe. Peaches made the transatlantic voyage to the New World in the 16th century with Portuguese and Spanish explorers. Conquistadors, Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries, and Indigenous people took them north from Mexico.
Modern thinking would have them stay in China and nobody else would be allowed to grow them or eat them i dont think.
Folks from the old days traded and folks grew things to eat and were happy to do so.
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Incorrect. Modern thinking would get peaches here safely. The USDA collects plant material from around the world to support US agriculture. Also, when peaches first came here there were no preexisting peaches to get infected by new peach diseases so the comparison you’ve made isn’t useful to the conversation.
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I agree that they do that.
There is also many many many US citizens that collect plant material from around the world to support their own agriculture and hobby and trade. I am one of them and belong to many many groups of tens of thousands of us… i have never seen anyone in any of our groups that did not enjoy growing things.
This movie is streaming on Amazon, Apple etc and is not illegal…and kind of what got me started. That and my passion of growing fruit.
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This. Get some other gardeners together, and get a group by going, and for international , that’s actually good. Try importing stuff yourself from other countries, and just having someone else navigate the process is worth it.
I will say that bringing seeds in, is easier than bringing in scionwood, and generally don’t carry the same risk of disease. Most exotic fruits are started from seed for that reason. And again, if the fruit doesn’t have a related plant or industry in the receiving country, there’s no chance generally of disease impacts.
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I am stepping away from this conversation… and others related to the subject… i think its ok to talk about these things once they are on US soil and someone is selling them or sharing them but the discussions get heated on the backstories.
On the movie i posted the mangos are grafted…and the guy who grafts them is insanely talented. He flies them in from the jungle to his orchard in California and then they become available to folks who like to grow Mangoes…thats how it works.
Some folks are doing it with persimmons and other fruits as well… and its the reason we are able to grow them.
Likely a pear or peach or something will become available to folks of this group…because of a fruit hunter.
Amethyst- my purple raspberry…was released by the USDA a very long time ago…and then was lost. One man found it again… and now it is in Canada and they dont sell to US citizens.
I currently have many very nice cultivars of blackberry… but they are not USDA releases…so its obviously not supporting US agriculture… and folks here frown on that.
Those people who don’t want to deal with the hassle of legally importing plants are the reason so many pests and pathogens get in.
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Kris, I understand your point, but you seem to have convinced yourself in an either/or fallacy (which arbitrarily excludes additional options)
It’s either we have completely unrestricted trade of plant materials from nations around the world, or no fruit exploring. But, we can have both fruit exploring and do it safely.
As mentioned I was a member of North American Fruit Explorers, and both hobbyists and professionals brought plant materials through APHIS.
Certainly, ancients and forefathers had no forethought of consequences from moving plants or animals across oceans and around the world on a whim. Past generations had little knowledge of ecological science. The world had to learn from mistakes. I don’t blame those past generations, for they were ignorant. But had they had the wisdom we know now some of these ecological disasters may have been avoided.
We might still have the fascinating Dodo birds of Mauritius (which were destroyed by sailors bringing dogs, pigs, macaques, etc. to the island).
In 1859, European rabbits were introduced in Australia for sport hunting. The 150 million wild rabbits of Australia today have caused “a collapse of indigenous plants and the native animal species that eat them” and soil erosion from excessive grazing of rabbits.
The starlings brought to the U.S. can be traced back to one man. In 1890, Eugene Schieffelin released 5 dozen starlings in New York central park because a group he belonged to wanted to release every bird mentioned in the works of Shakespeare to the U.S. Starlings transmit swine TGE (transmissible gastro enteritis) and have cost millions to pig farmers. They transmit West Nile virus, and other pathogens which affect humans, without themselves showing any symptoms. They poop all around agricultural buildings which spread avian diseases to poultry farms. They consume large amounts of wheat in the U.S. They kick bluebird, woodpeckers and flickers out of their own nests.
Burmese pythons in Florida are one of the latest ecological disasters, which were brought here because they make “cool” pets. Some escaped captivity in Florida, some were intentionally released by idiots.
There are pages and pages of examples of just invasive species disasters, which could be listed. But the point is, humankind has a sad history of spreading invasive plants/invasive animals and plant diseases/ plant insect pests wherever they travel.
It’s because of this that we have a national inspection service. To try to avoid those same historical disasters.
Here are some of the following pests I personally deal with:
Oriental fruit moth didn’t exist in the U.S. until 1913 when it was introduced in the U.S. from flowering cherry trees brought from abroad. Peaches existed without OFM for about 250 years (being brought to the U.S. by Spanish monks in the mid 1500s).
Japanese beetles were introduced from nursery stock from Japan for the World’s fair in 1916.
Codling moth was brought to the U.S. in the 1700s. It spread slowly across the U.S. During the civil war period, most of the Midwest still did not have to contend with this pest. Today it is ubiquitous across the U.S.
Pear psylla was introduced in the U.S. in the 1800s.
Pear blister mite was introduced in the U.S. from Europe sometime before 1900.
SWD introduced in the U.S. about a decade ago.
Of course Sharka virus hasn’t affected me directly, introduced to the U.S. in the 1990s, and successfully eradicated, but may yet affect me in the future.
Similarly European cherry fruit fly, which was found for the first time in the U.S. in 2017 will eventually make it’s way to the Midwest. A serious pest causing visible maggots in ripening cherries.
I could keep going, but these pests require multiple applications of pesticides to control. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration that the cost to farmers and consumers in the past century has been staggering, from lost crops and pesticide usage.
Certainly, not all imported diseases and insect pests are the result of people bringing in live plant materials or fruit from prohibited countries, but many are the result of that. That is the whole point of APHIS, to stop the madness.
That person has no respect from me. Anyone who has the resources to take an expedition to some jungle in the tropics and fly the material back to his orchard in California, certainly has the resources to work through APHIS. I’m not against fruit exploring, but this guy just doesn’t give a damn about any ruinous consequences resulting from his reckless behavior. Some diseases and insects can affect many different types of fruit and ornamental plants. He has no idea what diseases or insects he could be bringing back.
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Mark,
Thanks for the reminder.
In the Northeast, we have not quite recovered from the destruction of Asian Long-horned beetles wiping out hardwood trees here. They were accidentally brought here and discovered in 1996. Their path of destruction is heading south now.
Not long ago, red lily beetles/lLily leaf beetle population exploded. They destroyed lilies everywhere in this region, too. They were supposed to hitch a ride from importation of bulbs in the 1940’s.
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@swincher thanks for the mention of fruitwood nursery. I have been drooling on my keyboard. There are many plum varieties I would love to try, but they are unobtainable in Canada. This is one of the few US sources that says yes we will ship north of the 49th for a fee. I am a farmer by trade so I fully understand the impact of imported diseases, pests and weeds. It appears many of the fees are static regardless of the size of your order. So once I have my ducks in a row I will try to place a large(for me) order.
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I haven’t tried to import anything (yet!), but I’m getting some avocado trees inspected today for a phytosanitary certificate via APHIS, for export to a member of my cold-hardy avocado breeding project on Vancouver Island, BC. While it’s a little confusing to figure out all the details of the application, it’s not that expensive in the grand scheme of things (about as much as you’d pay for a mail order tree of this size), and the inspector was very helpful in terms of explaining what the form needed in each part.
There’s really no excuse for anyone to evade this process.
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Maybe we need a dedicated thread for people to share personal experience and advice for legally importing & exporting plant material so it can become familiar and normalized. I agree it can be intimidating, but it doesn’t need to be.
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