The Angraecoid Alliance Membership -- Your Thoughts?

What I have trouble with (besides the uncollegial anti-americanism) is the concept of ex-situ conservation preserving "the species". It preserves something, which is better than nothing, but once the orchids are gone from Madagascar, "the species" seems to me to be essentially gone. What remains is a horticulturally selected, bottlenecked gene pool of questionable likelihood of ever surviving in nature. Thus, in-situ conservation will be the only true conservation for "the species", whereas ex-situ is more for horticultural needs than any realistic conservation. Am I wrong?

 

In-situ-conservation is a long-term-project where re-estabishment of the plants comes at last. As mentioned far more wiped out than the local orchid-flora upon Madagascar are the natural pollinators due to the ungovernable usage of insecticides. Insecticides don´t distinguish between harmful insects threatening a (food-)culture or being responsible for transmitting diseases and those insects which are essential for the pollination. Generally seen orchids have 3 weak spots:
1) almost every species requires its individual pollinator
2) almost no positive result at self-pollination / Autogamie (like a lot of other plant families do with success)
and
3) the obstacle of the mykotrophy in germination

Long-term-studies proved that climatic changes don´t influence the orchids directly in growing or flowering at least not in that extent one did expect at first. But it´s once more the insect-fauna which immediately reacts and seems to be quite more sensitive. The problem is that nobody cares about insects.

>>What remains is a horticulturally selected, bottlenecked gene pool of questionable likelihood of ever surviving in nature. <<
Here you are partly right.
But I think the problem is more that Angraecoid-growers and enthusiasts can´t cope with the fact that certain Botanical Institutions are already working on the preservation and have done that for decades already but what they preserve is also protected from the individual orchid-hobbyist.
It´s totally clear and no reproach:
Conservation including that Angraecoid-growers have access to the plants, can buy them, cultivate and enjoy them ... is fairly welcome
whereas
Conservation laid into the responsibility of Botanical Institutions which alas banish the individual orchid-hobbyist ... is insufficiant and will be refused from your side.

So it appears to me that the inner reason why some of you are fond of a self-knitted conservation program among orchid-enthusiasts is only to get to plants and naming it conservation.

Madagascar´s flora and fauna cannot be saved anymore upon Madagascar, but the flora, especially what is about the orchids, are already safely stored to a high percentage in Botanical Gardens and Botanical Foundations. There they can be visited, admired, one can take pictures but to your disadvantage one has no chance to buy them. Whether this will be unlocked once ... I don´t know.
If the Angraecoid-Alliance concentrated at the plants which are already there but partly imballanced represented among the several continents this would already be a huge step more of all it would prove that conservation is the inner sense and not possession.

No anti-americanism meant from my side, if it came that way, I felt sorry for that.

 

The rhetoric has calmed down and some apologies have been made - I feel much better about the direction of this thread than I did a few days ago. With that said, this is becoming far more interesting to me.

The in-situ component to conservation is enormously complex and I wouldn't pretend to bring anything useful to that conversation.

As far as ex-situ is concerned...
theLab brings up a good point in effectively asking: "do you want to aid in conservation or do you want to have these special things in your own collection?"

From my perspective, the answer is "Yes - both of those ideas sound good to me"

Then my question becomes, are these goals mutually exclusive/ausschliessende?

It seems a large portion of the argument against commercial or quasi-commercial growers working with rare species is that it could lead to hybridization and a loss of pure species in circulation.
- Is there a way to prevent that?
- If it isn't prevented, does that change things? That is to say, if I can't get an Angraecum humile seedling from my local greenhouse today, how different is it if I can't get a pure Angraecum humile seedling from my local greenhouse in 5 years because it's been hybridized with Vanda coerulea and now has enormous purple flowers - the net availability of Angraecum humile remains the same to the general public/unwashed masses/me. If Kew and a few other botanical gardens are the only places that can really conserve a species, they aren't going to risk breeding their plants with Taiwanese ebay purchases - so their change is zero as well.

What are the barriers to or problems with crowd-sourcing (sorry for the buzzword y'all) genetic diversity? Perhaps it's naive, but the combination of populism, plants, and technology is infinitely appealing to me.
- Are there any models for it in other communities?
- Are there practical ways to ensure that genetic diversity is being maximized?

 

In my opinion there are three partners in this

1st
The botanic gardens that do science and botany. They care about preservation of the genome. They have done soo for long time by themself and can continue to do that. Strictly a botanical value is only there if the material can be traced back to nature. When this information is lost, the material have lost it´s scientific value .

2ond
We have the commersial growers. They want to earn money and breed plants that win awards soo they can get a better reputation and earn more money. They do not care about the genome as they hapily linebreed plant, do self crosses or hybrids to get more attractive plants. Just look on all misslabeled plants out there, Ascocentrum miniatum may be the most known one!
They also would love to get their hands on unique plant material they can get monopoly on and earn big money.

3rd
We have the orchid growers that would like to expand their collection with unique material. Many would like to get awards. This is the end consumer that drive the black market for illegal plants (without them no market) and can mostly not differ between horticultural and botanical value.

NOW
Why would the first part give the second part material soo they can earn money and contaminate the gene pool by not keeping track of the material? Why endanger the scientific value without getting anything back? The plants that leave the commersial growers will not have any scientific value if it is not recorded and under certain control.

I agree with theLab on no commersial grower in this kind of alliance and I would go one step further to say that material from a program like this SHOULD NOT be judged and awarded by any body, as this is not in line with scientific conservation of a natural and diverse gene pool. Awards and judging induce a non conserving selection when plants are breeded!
This last part, no judging, is perhaps more controversial than no commersial growers. But with judging you get personal pride and that have nothing to do with botanical conservation in my mind!

 

Ohh

There is one more thing



If you are not willing to take the cost for breeding but want to give that away to a commersial grower for free, I would say that you are not into this alliance for conservation but rather with the aim to expand your collection for free.

Sorry if this is offending but this is an important issue that needs to be lifted!

 

Magnus,

There is another "type" of person, lets say 4) individual growers who genuinely care about the plants and not about self-aggrandizement. They don't plan to make money or win awards or pursue the black market, just to enjoy the orchids and help out. I think most of us are type 4 and we should work together.

And yes, we need to pay.

Brian

 

Brian, then I do not understand why bother with commersial growers, as that will close the door to the big interesting collections in the bothanic gardens...

And how to handle people and growers that try to get their hands on material for commersial use? There is obviosly NO possibility to protect the valuble materials on a legal bases!

 

Keep on discussing. Reyna, the discussion is partly led hard but mostly fair, think I. From my side it only takes arguments from you to convince me.
Where are the companies around the world who have excellent collections of angraecoids? Can you tell me some … upon Europe?

Did you already get any replies from Botanical Gardens? It would be of interest what they think about your aims and plans? The mails I got from BG here upon Europe are congruently declining. The main problem is the commerce the AA is planning. Or mitigating it by naming it semi-commerce. Commerce is commerce anyway you will define it.
Ex-situ-conservation doesn’t require producing endangered plants in masses. A generative propagation succeeding in 20, 30 maximal 50 different clones will be far enough even when considering that 50% will die. What it takes only is to have certain centres who keep these plants alive and awy from any hybridism-purpose and off from any commercial ambition.
Locking out commercial-nurseries would implicate the free-trade-nursery in Madagascar, what is essential part of your idea, Sarah, will have promising prospects in order to serve the hobbyists legally and world-wide without fearing that professional labs will interfere ruin its business at long-sight and overtake the free-trade-nursery in their poorly income within a few weeks already.
A commercial propagation and distribution of Angraecoids in masses and done in the Western World will be the enemy and killer number 1 for your planned free-trade-nursery upon Madagascar. Isn´t that anyhow clear???

 

Is this your opinion, your assumption or do you have any evidences for that?
It´s the self-dictated regulation of Botanical Gardens NOT and NEVER to collaborate with commercial growers. Neither directly nor indirectly by a laboratory propagating plants from/for a BG forwarding them to commercial nurseries. It would interest me a lot whether BG upon America do NOT have these rules, are not subjected to them. Can you please check that and give me an answer about that. Then it will be easier to me to have a counterargument to some of the replies I got from BG here upon Europe. And no, it hasn´t be me contacting them about their opinion of the AA, they have contacted me, having your newsletter attached.

It would be useful to post some of their replies arriving here but I am convinced you will obtain the same answers held in English, too, maybe you have already gotten them. If you don´t receive any replies at all from BG it would be the typical and usual reaction of BG to inquiries mentioning a positive and free attitude towards commercialization. Mentioning commercialization being part of the plan of the AA simultaneously locked their doors, thus the AA banished itself. This is what I keep for a pity. But on the other hand it has been fair from you, Sarah, not to hide with this kind of aim serving and supporting commercial growers, as well. This is to appreciate as transparency counts most. Even more than the preservation of orchids.
It´s possible that BG in America have different rules although I cannot imagine that.

 

You mean keeping an orchid in your greenhouse or in a BG shall be more or less the same? Seen from the cultivation the plant maybe even feels better in your hands but the eminent difference is that you do „own” the plant as you have paid for it whereas plants in Botanical Gardens belong to a foundation – they cannot be bought, they cannot be sold, they cannot be dealt or traded and they can only be forwarded at the respect of certain conditions which - once more - locks out the commerce. The plants there are (well) preserved, your plants are (well) kept. Do you feel the difference?

I am happy to “most surprise” you, Sarah. *My* plants are to about 30 - 50% part of a foundation so they aren´t mine anymore. Moreover I don´t grow orchids, neither in a greenhouse, nor upon a windowsill. I purchase plants, I receive them, from Botanical Gardens, too … but these plants are immediately out-sourced to different keepers among Europe as my profession is the laboratory and the propagation. I don´t want to grow them deflasked, there´s no need for me seeing them flowering. What I do manage is to contact the different cultivations announcing: there´s the need these species being pollinated, propagated. Species XY is cultivated at centre A, B, C …, the different clones are registered with numbers and their origin is plainly documented so that we can avoid siblings. It takes a mouse-click only and I am up-to-date where which plants are stored, which ones carriy a spike, how many pollinia are frozen, where the plants are cultivated, which plants are successfully in propagation, which plants are there, which are lost, … . So I manage that pollinia will move from for instance Paris to Glasgow, Glasgow´s pollinia go to Rome , Prague supports Munich …, the intercontinental contacts not mentioned . Logistics !! That works well.

There´s the urgent need to repeat the propagation of Aerangis kirkii. No nursery has it to offer here among Europe, really no one. It took 2 weeks only in order to receive 4 matured, already flowered plants (3 from Germany, 1 from Italy) which are actually growing in my nearness, having 2 clones pollinated at a BG in Germany (it took one phone-call only), pods are already there, we have 3 further clones stored in the Netherlands which will stay where they are at least momentaey and a partner-lab in UK replied that they have seedlings we will receive in August. Isn´t it easy? It is !! Did we need any commercial growers? No, not at all. These are contacts based upon faith and trust. It´s a giving and taking.

As for the plants of the Foundation I don´t possess these plants, hardly any plants are anyhow in human possession, the plants belong to themselves. And I keep that sentence for marvellous and worth repeating it once more: the plants belong to themselves

Sometimes people visit my lab asking astonished: and where are the plants except those in sterile boxes? I answer smiling, they are spread and out-sourced all over Europe. The only flowering orchid (I think it´s a hybrid) I have here is a starving plant upon a windowsill what convinces the visitors I am skilled in flasking and some more but I do absolutely not dispose of a green thumb. And yes, they are right

 

So may I capture from these words that the Alliance's objectives or plans have already been set and fixed? I obviously misinterpreted it will be a democratic decision and I can still wait on the bylaws fixed by the members then.

You certainly remember the thread about Aerangis appendiculata, do you? I told you that we re-brought this plant into cultivation some years ago as it has been totally missing here upon Europe. We had a few plants, Isobyl had some, we both tried the pollination, supported each other as we usually do until today. Pods failed. Got pollinia from New Zealand then and they worked. We re-brought appendiculata into propagation again. My mistake has been to sell almost all of these plants as it has been an un-locked sowing, no BG and no Foundation involved but private plants and a private decision, why not, we had plenty of them here, so ok, let´s flow back some money into the lab. It has been about 200 – 300 seedlings we pushed off. Today some years later, no plant can be tracked and traced anymore. I hope one learns from those mistakes. Just a few plants remained in our cultivation (located in Austria, UK, Denmark and a very weak, actually flowering plant in Germany) and it would be of highest need to repeat the propagation. Someone here upon that Forum has been so kind offering me pollinia, of course asking for 50% of the seeds if the pod worked well in development and the seeds were viable. That´s absolute correct. Now this offer from America serving with pollinia was cancelled yesterday. Pollinia will stay in America. I can, too, tell you why … because I am so stubbornly against some of the AA plans, aims and ideas. No, problem, appendiculata will be propagated without the help from America, too.
Is exactly this the sort of collaboration the AA is planning to realize in the future? Is this the American way of "conservation"? Will this be the process of the future? Then personal aims are above those of conserving plants. That´s very democratic then, ironically said. Ok, accepted, I will once more obtain pollinia from New Zealand and sure, if I am still a member of OI then, I will offer pinches of that seeds to you. Why shouldn´t I?
Ntl it gets clear to me “HOW” obviously the AA is planning to work. That´s kindergarten-like. If you will play it that way then do it but it has absolutely nothing to do with a democratic decision or to increase the trust in the AA.

 

You say yourself …

Ok, you don´t want to be faced with arguments being partly against your brand-new baby named AA. Then better throwing those out who consider to contribute but are clearly posting the conditions we are able to take part and saying clearly, too, what is a no-go for us to support the AA.

I am not really in the position telling you how you treated your plants, how to water them well, when giving them a rest because I simply don´t know. But my profession is and was within the last years to propagate orchids (partly in collaboration with Botanical Gardens) and preparing in-situ-conservation for Laos, Angola, Sri Lanka, Boliva, Australia, Taiwan … . Although … don´t remind me of that, some worked well, some failed totally. It was exhausting. "Gabun is ahead now" and I am already scared ... . And I do a lot of ex-situ-conservation and I know what this means, what it takes and what I am speaking about.
You, Sarah, are certainly a brilliant grower of orchids but I maintain you have absolutely no idea of conservation. This is no reproach but fact. But you have a dream, an imagination, an idea. Most of what you dream of, Sarah, can be realized, is good. Most but not all. What it takes now, to my mind, is to bunch the different aspects, to take care of the rules, the laws, … and to contact not only those who dispose of Angraecoids in plants, praise you, sing Allelujah to you but to contact those, too, who maybe haven´t anything to do with Angraecoids but give you hints what is possible and what not. Opening your eyes (and I am sure you have pretty eyes) what can cause troubles, difficulties, problems even ending that way someone suddenly stands at your doorstep checking whether all of your plants are legal in your possession. This can happen fast.

You should accept my contradiction and take it for real and fair as there are others who will contradict from a far higher level. This you will have to accept and stand either including you think over some of your plans in details, maybe changing some ideas. I am not less stubborn than you are, Sarah. I say NO to commerce, you say YES. I am not better than you, you are not better than me. Question is only do WE want to find a solution or are commercial-growers already sitting in the background of the AA steering in a way that you as the official founder cannot step back anymore?

If your solution is to recommend me and colleague Magnus to leave this discussion and to look for another kind of conservation suiting better to our imagination then let me tell you that
a) this kind of conservation is already existing (but not limited to Angraecoids and most of all not acting loud and not acting loud on purpose!) and
b) that I conclude from your words that commercial-growers are already closely involved into the aims of the AA, maybe an irreplaceable part of that game already and that the AA is something which won´t exist without them. Then it gets clear and I really won´t waste time here anymore. I sing Allelujah at Christmas, not more often. All these Allelujahs will be helpful to your personal Ego but they don´t help you in any way referring your plans. My recommenation as a reply to yours for me: Stand critics as they are meant as a support (maybe in a today´s got unusual and inconvenient way) and not to bury your dream low.

 

Sorry that you took it personal. My intention was to point out the back side of orchid horticulture, not as a personal attack on you. As AA is set up today I just can´t see a biological scientific conservation. I also though that the AA was under democratic rules were the setup could be discussed from ALL aspects. But it is now clear to me that I was wrong on that.

Sorry again for bringing up controversial issues!

No not really! I do not grow orchids to show off or boast my ego. There are to many orchid species to grow, that is availibly form reliably sources, that I do not care about very rare specie for the sake of owning one!

I have made a personal statement about my orchid growing. I DO NOT buy any plants at a Orchid Show that have any indication to be wild collected! I have seen the "candy boxes" at Europeen orchid shows and I have reliable sources that word like "collectors" have been used in private. I have decided that I will try to NOT contribute to the "Black Market" that no one can deny excist.

I also no longer preorder any orchids to shows for further distribution by mail to me from growers I do not know, as I never can inspect the plants condition. I do though order for pickup at shows if the grower have a good reputation and as I can refuse the plants if I have any thoughts of wild collected plants!

I also never participate with plant for judging, and find "competition" with nature´s glory revolting. Sorry for that!

I also do not grow orchid hybrids except for two plants, one phal NoID and one Paph vinicolor. The only reason I have them is that they are gifts from very dear friends!



Yes, I am an odd fellow in the orchid community and I will continue to be that !

/Magnus

 

Dearest Marni, I don´t feel pissed - did I write that anywhere?
It only gets clear that you are not really interested in an exchange. I wish you good luck with the propagation, it is really important to get the plant back to a proper cultivation.

Referring aurantiflammeum ... we tried a self-x here as a second clone is regrettably missing, I don´t know what you mean exactly? You said yourself your plant is different in look. Did you want me to send a pollen to you?? Sorry, that I have misinterpreted but we can do maybe at the next flower, if you still want it to have. I will ask.
Most of the seeds we got from you was ok, but some failed totally whereas you had a brilliant germination. Thus I blamed it on the shipment. I kept and keep you for honest not sending dead seeds. I received in the same way I sent. I hope the Aerangis hologlottis seeds do fine, this would be essential, too. And I am happy they are in America.

I am absolutely not upset, why should I? I keep a giant Aerangis collection, Angraeca are rather not my favourites. So it would have rather be you took profit from our collections than the opposite. Referring the way you write about me it rather seems you are upset and I am certainly not shouting I am totally cool and relaxed. Maybe only the American dream seems to be gone when showing what your aims are. Your aims, not mine. You can go on to piss, Marni, if you need that but please do not piss at my feet. Thanks.
As a moderator you have a peculiar way of writing.

I think it´s really better going separated ways. Can you please care for cancelling my account? Thanks. I would like to have my threads and contributions be cancelled, too. I suppose they are of no interest for you anymore as reminding you of a loose cannon. Did you still remember who helped you in getting your sowing-career onto your feet. I can easily recall mails written day and night. I was pleased to help you as good as I can and very proud when your first flask stayed clean. Anyway, I will keep that.
Good luck to your project I never the less will observe it with interest. I am sure you will succeed in the one or the other. That´ll be good.

bye
Matthias

 

Sperm banks don't even have this kind of drama! Love it!

Good luck! I am sure some Johnny appleseed will show up soon.

BTW, where is Floozo?