My first choice had a lot more obscure varieties. Here is the second request:
Cox’s Orange Pippin
Wickson
Blairmont
Golden Harvey
Hudson’s Golden Gem
Circassian Apple
Norfolk Beefing
Piervomaiskoie
P.1
Wallace Howard
A couple of the others had rights complications as well. I wanted to avoid that.
At least a few of those are already readily available through regular sources as well as via trading with other collectors so if you don’t get your order approved I’m sure you’ll still be able to get a hand full of them through regular means.
Is there an online nursery that doesn’t have Cox’s in stock?
I did not check online nurseries. Like I said; they asked for a quick redo of the order. I quickly determined good fertilization pollinators useable. And guess what. Odd, not well known apples tend to utterly lack pollination and ploidy information. So I’m not sure how I could do otherwise.
Had I kept Rouville and Pionier instead of Cox Orange and Wickson it would not look so commercial. But Cox was chosen as a good pollinator. Wickson for disease resistance. Especially since my other disease free choice{Circassian} is not very noted for it’s edible qualities.
Incidentally, I’m ordering Royal Sweet as well. Like Circassian and Piervomaiskoie; another massive spreading tree of exceptional vigor and longevity. All are going on Dolgo rootstock.
Raintree, ThreeTrees, Mehrabyan,Century, GreenMantle, Burnt Ridge, Blue Hill , Fruitwood and Maple Valley are all nationally known online Nurseries. None of them has Cox Orange Pippin as part of their chosen inventory.
Cox is more of a New England regional favorite.
Cox’s Orange Pippin is a 200 year old British “Heritage” apple. It’s available on 6 continents and probably over 100 countries.
(it sold out fast, like Hudson’s Golden Gem before I was able to order)
Mehrabyan has it on Bud 118.
So??? Not every nursery has it as you claimed. Or like Maple Valley who does not have it in trees or Scionwood.
I’m not rummaging through dozens of website pages when GRIN asks me to modify an order quickly and return it to them. I found compatible types and resubmitted.
The irony is I’ve never wanted Cox Orange Pippin as part of the orchard{I will take it’s son Paroquet}. I’ll probably donate them all later. I have plenty of other English apples coming later this year.
If I were making the decision, I would turn down your request for sure.
Cox, Wickson and Hudson’s Gold Gem are readily available via commercial sources, scion exchange and all over the place.
Many of the growers here have all 3 of those and would readily give them away.
You really do need to rummage through dozens of websites to determine if your requests are commercially available. The rules specifically state that this material is not to replace commercial operations.
Going through with this will likely make things more difficult for serious amateur breeders, evaluators and researchers.
I would suggest rereading the rules.
https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/geneva-ny/plant-genetic-resources-unit-pgru/docs/germplasm-requests/
Your point might stick if a Phd, at GRIN had not made the request to change the order after cancelling it outright. I have no idea what their reasoning was. I was going to skip ordering the accessions this year entirely. Not seeing how this makes things more difficult for others if GRIN staff requests a re-order. And if they truly want to not offer commercial offerings; they should exclude them from availability outright.
And thanks; I am a serious breeder. I find your point overwrought here.
Disseminating scionwood is direct impact to the US,- exactly what repositories want to demonstrate to their administration. Pruning is a costly and required expense each year. But it is far less costly than filling orders. Phytos are required for each and every order, and they are not free. Further, there are shipping costs as well. Different repositories also do have different budgets, some have more available than others in any given year.
The shipping cost is on my dime. And it is not shipping to a phyto certificate required state.
And what is this idea I’m not using commercially available sources? I have 4 orders for nurseries in the offing. 6 if you count rootstocks.
You clearly violated their rules. It is not up to them to determine if a variety is commercially available or not.
A serious breeder should be expected to determine if a variety is commercially available or not.
Do you have evidence that you have provided to them that you are a bonafide apple breeder? Are you suggesting that you did not violate any of their rules?
You said “I have no idea what their reasoning was” Their reasoning was, you violated their rules.
I think good points have been made on both sides, but it’s honestly starting to feel like more of an attack on the op than an educational moment. As someone who has both ordered from as well as donated material to the USDA I’d like to point out that they do sometimes make exceptions to their own rules (as it is their prerogative to do). How flexible they are willing to be really depends on a lot of factors and if they have the time available to do so they will sometimes agree that requests are worthy despite not quite matching their stated requirements. The important thing is that you are honest in stating the purpose of your request so they can determine if it is in keeping with their mission.
Also, regarding phytosanitary certificates… When needed, they definitely make the requester pay for the certification up front and do not eat that cost themselves. How do I know? Well, I once paid $100 to get four “free” cuttings from the Florida location. lol
I’m sympathetic to the folks trying to run the program. I’ve benefitted from getting scion wood from them when I was establishing my orchard. Back then I think there was much much less awareness of the program from new and inexperienced growers.
In my experience the Geneva repository was one of the more friendly and accommodating, but I bet they’ve been worn down.
There are also many more avenues to access scions from home.
Here is a cut & paste from the 2022 Annual Report of the National Germplasm Laboratory which operates GRIN-Global and other USDA -ARS resources. This section specifically address how they sort out non legitimate requests. 58% were rejected.
“This Non-Research Request (NRR) Tool allows us to filter and separately evaluate incoming germplasm requests that have characteristics suggesting they are not within our distribution policy, i.e. for home or community gardening, or basic educational projects that do not require unique and valuable germplasm, etc. A team of 3-4 NPGS staff are serving as the NRR reviewers to evaluate incoming requests that are flagged by the NRR Tool. The tool also allows for a uniform U.S. National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS)-wide means of communicating with requestors, and to the genebank locations about multi-site requests. As of early June 2022, the NRR Tool and review team had processed more than 4300 incoming orders, with about 58% of them being rejected.”
“As of June 2022, NPGS genebanks have distributed more than 100,000 plant germplasm samples in the calendar year based on requests received through GRIN. This material is used by global scientists to improve agricultural production and sustainability.”
https://www.ars.usda.gov/research/programs-projects/project/?accnNo=434403&fy=2022
And it is THEIR prerogative to turn down the request. I think you miss the point they maintain commercial plants explicitly FOR cultivar improvement. You also seem to breeze over I will share results and data with schools doing heavy weight level breed improvement.As well as returning the work back to them. I said this on the outset and feel you really have not read the thread at all.
To date, has any soul explicitly stated a goal to improve the USDA’S own Blairmont cultivar?