Paph thaianum now in the the USA

[s1214215]

Woohoo..:clap: The second flask has passed USDA and PIS and is back with USPS.. hmm enough acronyms for you?

So I sur enough now that thaianum is an ok plant to ship to the USA

Brett

ps.. can anyone add the dancing banana to the list of emoticons :rollhappy:

 

[s1214215]

2nd flask thaianum is at the delivery hometown post office and about to be delivered. Seems there is no reason for thaianum to be sent to the USA..

Brett

 

[cnycharles]

2nd flask thaianum is at the delivery hometown post office and about to be delivered. Seems there is no reason for thaianum to be sent to the USA..

Brett

you mean that there is no reason it can't be sent to the u.s.?

I just opened up the box and everything looks good (especially those phal lowii; sweet!), though I'll have to check out the thaianum as they got mixed a bit. Most of them should be okay, though

 

[gonewild]

Love to see a picture of how they arrived!

 

[s1214215]

I am hoping they are ok.. They are in conical flasks, which I think dont travel as well as whisky bottles. That said, the Taiwanese only use conical flasks from what I have seen. I tend to get the flasks from two suppliers that add less agar to their flasks when replating as I find these travel much better. I will ask my friend for pics now that they arrived.

I think we have to be realistic though when we send flasks in the post. They never really arrive pristine. Some arrive looking really good, but they tend to be big plants and an element of luck comes in too i.e. the handlers didnt play football with it. Small seedlings travel less well. I try to send as large as I can get them so they dont bounce about.

Its a shame I cant take seedlings out of flask, wash off the agar and put them into sterile bags. I have a laminar flow cabinet and bagging the plant is really the best way to ship them. No damage at all then. I dont think this is permitted to the USA though. I might send an email to USDA to check, but I think it is not and if it is, I may have to get an authorised lab to deflask them into bags.

Brett

 

[s1214215]

Hi Charles.. I missed your post above. Can you take some pics for us? Will email you too about pics. It would be good to see.

Yes, you are correct. There is no reason we can not send thaianum to the USA. F&W, CITES and USDA have said ok, and now I have sent two flasks and there has been no problems or confusions. So its all go.

Brett

 

[cnycharles]

I posted pics of plants I'm putting in the auction and included the thaianum flask which is linked here
http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?p=280425#post280425

things did get turned around a bit I can see, but like brett said the booze flasks with large plants fared the best while smaller things got stirred around a bit

too bad there isn't a packaging invention that includes a sort of gyroscope such that when placed in a box, it makes it very difficult to turn the box on it's side

 

[s1214215]

Hi Charles

I am happy that the whisky bottles did ok.. Shook up, but thats normal for flasks that have been half way around the world for near seven days in the post I think.

Thanks for the help on this and the pics. I am glad the Phal lowii fared well, the Pecteilis I OK, and the thaianum, well I think they guys at USPS had a game of football.. I am sorry, but I think standards are declining at USPS. I have been posting to the USA for three years now and I keep seeing things slip. The manager at Customs was scathing of USPS as they took near two days to come get this box, even though Customs the manager had cleared it and called them to say come get it. I was advised I should make a formal complaint. Bit hard from Thailand though.

I suggest if you can do a big order/group order to use an airline to freight flasks over and pay an agent to transit them for you.. Its worth the fee and not hard to organise.. They are much kinder to your plants. I just got a box from Taiwan last month, 20 flasks and only two had to be unflasked.. All the others are still in flask. That was with KLM. Oh, the box had this way up stickers on it and fragile stickers,, yet packed no where near as well as I pack. Yet they arrived near pristine. Says a lot. I am about to get my third lot of flasks from Taiwan by KLM and I will stick with them.

Here is a pic of a flask from the same batch of thaianum (still in flask) and a second thaianum from a conical flask with heavier agar from a different Tawainese nursery (after potting - you can see why I prefer light agar in flask and why I am purchasing from the fist flask supplier more now), and a Chilochista that I sent to Japan after four days in the post and the later thaianum after potting.

Brett

 

[cnycharles]

hello brett,
I agree that a different carrier is the way to go, and that either complete incompetence or absolute spite was involved in these two boxes being treated so roughly. For this last box, which was packed and labeled so well, it is shocking how much damage there was to the thaianum flask. It had to have been deliberate as the packing and labeling were done so well; the packing wasn't the issue... a box that large would have to be deliberately roughed around for the contents of that flask to have been so completely mixed around and the leaves/stems to have been damaged as they were

that said, though I can't say how I would act if I had sent packages and the carrier were not being timely in getting them around; if someone has you at their mercy and can have such a negative effect on a lot of valued items, I have a feeling that if at all possible I'd try to talk as calmly as possible to keep individuals from getting so uptight that they would do something like this. though I am mentioning this, if the same had happened to me I can't say that I would have dealt with them any differently, just that letting loose on service people rarely ever ends up going well for the customer when the customer isn't present to watch over their goods! (think of the cockroach in the cheeseburger....)

after looking at your pictures above again, I have to say that the damage to the seedlings in this last box (and likely the previous one) was deliberately done. for a box that large to have that much damage meant that someone went to a lot of trouble to mess them up that badly

 

[s1214215]

Hi Charles

I know the grief on this. Luckily the thaianum I sent was at my cost and you are not out of pocket in it.. The other plants are were bigger and that shows in that they travelled better. Still, I think it not impossible to send these flasks as I have sent paphs of the same size in flask to friends before

Two factors come in though. Speed is one.

The other is a big heavy box.. If the USPS boys cant pick it up and throw it, it arrives soooo much better.

Serious,, I sent a 18kg box to Virginia a while back and not much movement at all in some flasks.

Also, I just got a word from my friend in Japan.. One of the thaianum I send him, after 4 days in the post is still in flask, unifected after a month.. so post can work..

I do suggest though, that it may be worth looking at airlines for larger shipments as I still have flasks from Taiwan sitting here perfect from my last two shipments.

Brett

 

[gonewild]

Its a shame I cant take seedlings out of flask, wash off the agar and put them into sterile bags. I have a laminar flow cabinet and bagging the plant is really the best way to ship them. No damage at all then. I dont think this is permitted to the USA though. I might send an email to USDA to check, but I think it is not and if it is, I may have to get an authorised lab to deflask them into bags.
Brett

In order for the plants to be exempt from CITES they must be "in-vitro" at the time of importation. Deflasked and in a sterile bag is not "in-vitro". We can import the species into the USA if they are out of flask but that requires all the CITES permits and documents and expense.

 

[s1214215]

In order for the plants to be exempt from CITES they must be "in-vitro" at the time of importation. Deflasked and in a sterile bag is not "in-vitro". We can import the species into the USA if they are out of flask but that requires all the CITES permits and documents and expense.

Thanks.. I worried this was the case.

We can send plants deflasked into sterile bags to send to Australia, but sadly every lab in Thailand I contacted from the AQIS list says they dont do that anymore as theres no money in it.

I emailed AQIS to see if I can get a friend certified.. Doesnt help the USA though

Brett

 

[gonewild]

Hi Charles

I suggest if you can do a big order/group order to use an airline to freight flasks over and pay an agent to transit them for you.. Its worth the fee and not hard to organise.. They are much kinder to your plants. /ChilochistaFlask.jpg[/IMG]

The problem is that there can be long delays clearing customs from the airlines. Believe it or not the USPS has a fast process through Customs.

 

[s1214215]

Ye Gods.. I cant win to help my friends..

So then it may be to send a big order by EMS as then it wont be tossed about..

Brett

 

[Hien]

Ye Gods.. I cant win to help my friends..

So then it may be to send a big order by EMS as then it wont be tossed about..

Brett

I think we should be less demanding of perfection with plants in flasks, and be just happy that we are lucky to have a Slippertalk friendly member who provides us a mean to get some plants we may not have access to otherwise.

1) even sending flask a short distance between states may not look better than what I see from these pictures in this post.
2) short of having a personal courrier who bring the box always right side up door to door (but we will have to pay the person's air fare , and may be more...for such a critical /important stuff) there is no way to avoid all the mechanical / automatic UPS, FEDEX, USPS sorting belts from tumbling thing once it is off the sender's hands.
3) I also have a suggestion. To save the bruise plants / leaves, one should use only distilled water in washing them, not normal tap water or any chemical such as physan (distilled water really does a wonderful job in saving leaves).

 

[cnycharles]

hien, that sounds like good advice, though eric had washed them with water and some physan and then diluted dragon's blood, and I just finished rinsing them after a short soak with warm water and diluted hydrogen peroxide (minutes before I read this). we do have city water, but as adirondack spring water has very little contaminants and sources of bacteria, they have the lowest allowable levels of chlorine in their water. i've received a few flasks including from australia and seen agar moved around a bit, but both of these flasks were completely stirred up like someone had put a spoon in there and mixed them up like a milkshake. to have that happen in a large box that is packed tight with bubble wrap, means that someone or many people tossed it around for a while (or shook it like a holder you would mix a drink with ice in...)

 

[NYEric]

3) I also have a suggestion. To save the bruise plants / leaves, one should use only distilled water in washing them, not normal tap water or any chemical such as physan (distilled water really does a wonderful job in saving leaves).

I used distilled water, the plants were so damaged that to not use a cleaning agent would have meant just throw into garbage can.

 

[gonewild]

Most flasks that I have bought that were shipped in flask get all messed up. Even some flasks I bought from Santa Barbara ( 2 hour drive) shipped in the mail came all scrambled. The problem is the agar block acts like a hammer and smashes the tender foliage. I always ask that the plants be removed from the flask for shipping but of course this is not possible for international shipping.

Maybe the solution would be to ship the flasks when the plants are in a protocorm stage and then replate them on arrival into another flask. This of course means extra lab time after arrival but maybe a higher survival ratio?

If the agar in the flask can be more liquid for shipment that would reduce physical damage to the plantlets. Or the root mass needs to be so overgrown that it won't move around in a tapered flask.

I don't think airline security will allow anyone to hand carry flasks on board a plane now so personal transport is not an option.

 

[NYEric]

yes, that would work better. another idea I suggested would be to pack the flask w/ sterile styrofoam beads. The plants could grow up and the air space would be less open for plantlets to shift during transportation.

 

[s1214215]

Any updates on how the seedling have fared over time? Should be fs by now.

Hope they recovered from the postal trauma. Sadly we cant put anything in flasks to protect the plants. I have had friends in countries that are not fussy, put sterile perlite in the flask and it stops plants getting smashed.

Brett