Seeds from China

Yeah I thought so too. Hopefully they’ve not gene-spliced pumpkin with kudzu and are sending to us to see what happens :smiley:

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My wife got a packet this past week and she tossed them in the trash.

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The stereotypes in this thread are unfortunate. Time to rethink my membership on this site
Sad

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whats sad is people think china has our best interests in mind but they are a communist country don’t forget. i don’t have anything against its people but the government controls their businesses and trade. we know for a fact their government doesn’t like our type of government. they tolerate us as long as theres money to be made. id treat those seeds the same way id treat something from north korea, afganistan, iraq or any country for that mater that doesn’t like us. esp. unlabeled stuff. too easy to send biologicals or poisonous chemicals in them. the world can be a dangerous place and we have many enemies out there. don’t take a chance. chuck it and wash your hands.

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Now if they sprout in the trash …

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Hopefully that doesn’t happen. She doesn’t follow the news at all and had no idea. She just knew that she didn’t order anything, so it must be trash.

People buy seeds and plant materials all the time from china, either intentionally or by accident. If it happened on eBay, they will usually get a call or visit from the USDA later, because eBay reports all such sales to them. There is nothing the USDA can do to the sellers, and they don’t usually fine the buyers for whatever reason.

Really, companies like eBay should not allow those types of sales. Maybe they don’t feel qualified to judge each one according to the law, maybe they still want to get a commission.

At any rate, we as a whole sre at fault for providing the market, that is how it works. If there were no buyers there would be no sellers, no wasted USDA time either.

I don’t know enough about how “brushing” works to say if that is what is happening. But if eBay is requiring delivery confirmation for feedback that would make sense.

It is scary to think how vulnerable we are to bioterrorism by way of invasives, but this doesn’t look like that. They’d send them to an agent, who would disperse them and nobody would know what happened. Of course the government might be suspicious, things like SLF have been traced and judged accidental. Still, there’s not much we can do to avoid intentional introductions aside from not picking fights.

they don’t allow plant parts like cuttings to come in from elsewhere. i don’t understand why they allow seeds? its the same issue. but for some reason isn’t enforced. yp me you could just as easily bring a contaminant in on seeds as on cuttings or other plant material. I’m guilty of it. ordered some cloudberry seeds on eBay from canada. seen others do it so i said what the hell. but I’m on the canadian border. thats a little direct as we have canadians on this side all the time . and vice versa. but bringing plant material of any kind, in from another continent, id think should be stricter, i goes until someones dies of anthrax powder in a sealed envelope with seeds, it won’t be on anyones radar. doesn’t that sound familiar?

The seeds are not allowed, they can’t screen all incoming imports.

With figs, you can imports seeds through the small seed lot program, but they still want to inspect them. Cuttings are outright banned though, at least from most parts of the world, because of specific beetles that bore into wood.

I actually have the opposite opinion, that importing plant material should be easier, since bans just lead to illegal smuggling.

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Came here just to talk about this. Someone I know actually got some of them. This is crazy and a little scary. Imagine if they sent out thousands of packages of kudzu or callery pear and then 25% of people who got them planted them around their property? And I’m sure there are far more invasive/disease carrying plants out there. Who knows what kinds of plants biologists could create if the goal is to disrupt American agriculture. China (or whoever) could almost certainly create some kind of super invasive plant or one that could cross with some of our agriculture staple crops and/or carry a disease/fungus/blight/etc that would kill some of our agriculture crops. Imagine if suddenly all corn plants became infected with something that comes from the plant these seeds create and suddenly corn can’t be grown in America. That gets scary!!!

I honestly have never been a conspiracy theorist and I know I’m way oversimplifying things in my little “what if” scenario. but the point is if a nation like China really did set out to design some plants that could wreck American Agriculture, they just might be able to do some real damage. I’d never thought about this as a form of warfare, but if you could destroy a country’s ability to grow its own food, it could be just as detrimental as bombs could be!!

@TangTang

Sorry… I looked sincerely and can’t figure. What stereotyping are you seeing?

A little Geopolitics maybe

Mike

Live plant material including seeds are not allowed to be imported into US without permission. But US custome doesn’t have enough manpower to check every incoming mail, parcel, shipments etc (also it is agreed between postal service in two countries that certain items are not supposed to be mailed ). However there are many loopholes for someone to take advantage of/smuggle in ilegel materials. In fact many seeds mailed from China were claimed as jewelry or something othet than seeds.

In US, most ppeople behave on trust, credits, and self enforcement on following government rules and regulations. However, in China or many other countries, they operated just the opposite fashion. It’s a game of Tom and Jerry.
I agree there could be a potential danger to be used by certain group of people. But most sellers are just trying to sale some seeds and earn some income.
This became a big deal recently due to deteriorating relationship between two countries. In fact, China also warn its people not open up any package sent from outside of the country in fear of contaimination of corona virus

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Rather than the trash, I would burn them or at least nuke them so they don’t sprout and possibly cause problems.

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If it was through eBay, the people who receive them might be contacted by the USDA later to collect them. I haven’t heard if they have put out guidance, but I would contact the local office and ask what to do with them. They may want them for an investigation. And if there is some sinister plot afoot, that could be important.

The local state university extension office emailed guidance to local farmers and gardeners with contact information for Ohio Department of Agriculture and the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Anti-smuggling hotline.

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I believe it’s the jumping to conclusion that these Chinese senders are trying to destabilize our lands/agriculture when it’s in reality a scam to boost sellers internet ratings.

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What are you talking about. Only sterotype that anyone is talking about is the scam being something that happens a lot and only benefits the scammer. If someone calling out a scammer bothers you…bye.

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@GeorgiaGent
Kevin,
I think you just took a leap of something.

Your jumping to the conclusion that "in reality it is a scam to boost the sellers internet ratings"is as supported by the existing facts as would be that they were sent by me.

Also you said “in reality”. Really?. Do you know something we all don’t?

And REGARDLESS, whatever the "“conclusions” that are being posited here, they still do not fit the definition of or rise to the level of a stereotype.

I am sorry if TangTang got offended by the mild musings had on this thread enough to walk away from the huge wealth of information and good cheer available here, but…

Oversensitivity and being unable to deal with ANY discomfort will be the death of a free thinking, creative & curiously exploring society.

My right to swing my fist might be curtailed where your nose begins, but, my right to express myself verbally CANNOT be allowed to be curtailed at you eardrum.

Just sayin’

Mike

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I am very confused by the rules for fig cuttings, there are still people importing them legally from all over the world in to the USA, sounds to me like they were grandfathered in, they were not told to stop, the cuttings get inspected when they come in. Also last year I did research and on the USDA website they were making it seem like they have changed their policies and that any cuttings can be brought in legally that you just have to wait longer than before for the inspection to finish. I tried e-mailing them to ask questions about it, more than a year later now, and they still have not responded, I sent in the form to them to import cuttings and again, over a year later and no response about the form. It’s rather frustrating because their rules only apply to some people, as far as legally importing cuttings in to the USA.

They act like it’s easy for them to find the beetle attacking the fig trees, so I wonder why the ban in the first place.

I understand that some sellers say, or elude, to legally importing cuttings. All places where you would want to import from are banned, europe, the middle east… and the countries that are allowed like canada, china, mexico etc. require a quarantine and phytosanitary certificates.

I don’t know why they really need a ban, it has created an opportunity for dishonest resellers to cash in.