Seems I have a lot of stuff to cover, so as much as I really don't like doing this, I'm going to have to quote what I'm replying to in order to (hopefully) prevent confusion.
The low prices could be because:
1) the plants are TC
2) you're in nep territory
3) there is actually a market for them there
4) any combination of/all of the above
I live in the barren wasteland of West Texas. Besides the crappy, neglected, "cube of death" plants that no one ever buys (except me on occasion) we have at Lowe's here, (not even Home Depot carries them), we have absolutely no market for Nepenthes whatsoever in this part of the world. Practically no one here has ever heard of them. We pay about RM39 for a 2 or 3" TC'd ventricosa or ventrata, and trust me, they are
always on death's door if you buy from those places. However, the fact that the plants look atrocious is 100% the fault of the vendors. They leave them under benches, inside, and don't water them. The only reason their stock rotates is when the plants die.
TC plants have a very limited aspect of uniqueness. Any TC clone is different from any other, but so is any seed. With lots of actual TC plants, but relatively few numbers of clones (only 1 in some cases) you can see where I'm going with this. So far, the only place I know of where you can get neoguineensis is Wistuba, and they are TC plants. Stage 2 is the only size he has available, which is 6-12 months ex-vitro, and knowing how plants from there are, they're probably what....1-2" across? They also cost about $60, or RM192. The current price for a seed pod (~50 seed I guess) is about $30. Assuming you have any clue what you're doing, you'll probably have
at least 15 of those plants survive, and in about a year, they'll be about 1" across. So, would you rather wait 14 months (including germination time if the seeds are semi-fresh) and get 15 1" plants for RM98, or wait about 4 months (or however long it takes to get Wistuba plants) and get 1 1" plant for RM198? That is why seed is cheaper if you have good cultural techniques.
Of course, this is just one situation with one species at one time. This is the second time I've ever seen neo seed available. There was some going around a while back, and I got some, but something was wrong with it. Three other people that frequently grow from seed besides me got 0 germination, as did I.
Personally, I have no idea why TC is expensive, even with "rare" plants. It's touted as being able to mass produce plants and make them more available, so when supply goes up, price usually goes down....It's said that you can get many more plants much faster (even though seeds sown in vitro take much longer to germinate), but the price of rare TC plants is still high. Why? I don't know...maybe it has something to do with having to pay a professional (or semi-professional) to perform the culture, or the fact TC plants take a long time to grow. If plants that are a year ex-vitro are still only 1-2", that's a sign for concern. That means at that point, those plants are at least over a year and a half old, probably closer to two (~6 months in vitro germination, a couple months growing time, 12 months ex-vitro), and that's IF they weren't cut at all in vitro! Even my 1 year old seedlings are about an inch or more on average, and there is that splendiana x rokko I have that is quickly approaching a foot at only 12-13 months. OTOH, any hobbyist with a jam jar can grow anything from seed with next to no effort, and get plants that will reach the same size at least as fast.
Of course not. AFAIK, sp. Viking, sp. Cambodia, thorelii "Giant Tiger", etc have all been reproduced only from seed and cuttings. All their populations still exist, and many, many people have the plants. They grow quickly and are very easy to reproduce. OTOH, there's tenuis, which was seed grown and reproduced from cuttings, but I think I know maybe 2-4 people with the plant.
I think this again is a product of your location. Were I you, I'd have no qualms with my personal collecting seed from the wild to share with other growers worldwide. However, I don't think I'd go around asking nurseries to get seed-grown neps in that part of the world (or Sarracenia in this part of the world), since as you said all the seed origin stuff they have is poached*. There are way too many opportunistic people that are quick to make a buck off of nature, and don't know/don't care about the implications of over-collection (why do you think lots of Sarracenia sites are kept secret?). If they were responsible, I don't know how successful they'd be at actually growing the plants. From some pics I've seen from members on lots of different forums that live in that part of the world, I get the impression most nurseries have no clue what they're doing with neps (except for nep-oriented stuff like fauzi), as most of the neps look absolutely horrendous when bought and brought home. On pitcherplants, someone in IIRC Manila, said they bought neps at a nursery that were potted in
mud....in a coconut (with no drainage holes, mind you). Not very conducive to successful culture of the genus.
There are different forces at work in both situations. As I said, I honestly have no clue why TC plants are so expensive if they're so easy to mass produce. When vendors sell seed plants, many of them at times are expensive, as (at least some, but by no means all of) the vendors play off the fact that they are unique. Looking at BE's list though, they are selling seed grown tobaica's for $6 for a medium plant. That's pretty cheap to me. I have one of them, and I love it. $6 for a medium plant is also their retail price. I can't access their wholesale list anymore, but obviously when quite a few are ordered, they are even cheaper. FWIW, I got mine from a vendor here for $8, which IMO, is still pretty cheap.
The price of start up from seed is much cheaper. No labor besides about 10 minutes of preparing a seed flat, sprinkling, and misting. In the "initial" long run though, I suppose seed would be more expensive for the nursery, based on the fact that once they're out, they're out, until their stock plants flower. I think what some places do is sow seeds on compost and in vitro, begin by selling the seed plants, then move on to the TC plants, then they may or may not move back to seed grown offerings once their stock plants flower. Just an opinion however, I'm not a nursery owner. Maybe an owner can elaborate more on this point. TC plants can also be "exhausted" however, it just takes much longer. Once a plant has been multiplied over, and over, and over, unwanted aberrations begin to pop up. Also, if you're not a very smart TC'er and you use something stupid like base analogs, your plants are going to be mutated and all-around awful. Some TC plants also have inherent mutations BUT, the same plant grown from seed would have had it too. The difference is, with a seed, there'd only be one mutated plant, but if it is micropropagated ("TC"), there can be thousands of them. Now, if that hypothetical mutation is say...infertility, and there are only a limited number of clones in circulation (especially if they are all the same gender)...well then we have a problem on our hands. That's the big problem with TC I can see, is that you never know when you choose a clone to propagate. Of course, this problem could be counteracted by growing the clones you make out....but no nursery I am aware of has the space or time to grow out say, 50 clones of the same species, and do that for every species. They are businesses, after all.
Some things are going to be expensive regardless. Have you seen a cheap hamata? Me neither. There are a variety of reasons for this, even though the plant is in TC. Seed is hard to get to, not very much was originally collected, etc, etc. Would the price go down if a ton of seed was collected/produced? I'm absolutely sure of it. However, all the clones ATM seem to be male, which again is a drawback of the "not knowing" factor with TC. Not that you know with seed grown plants either. TC would be GREATLY improved with clone selection, but as aforementioned, there are space restrictions. I'd like nurseries to keep at least 10-15 randomly selected clones (one of each let's say) of each species for their private stock, to one day produce seed. Perhaps some or all of them already do? I don't work there, so I don't know.
Even some TC plants aren't exactly what I'd call available (pervillei for example). Then again....never seen seed of it offered either. I'm guessing this is because of low numbers of seed collected originally. In a case like this, I'd rather have 3 or 4 TC clones that can continue on for a couple years, instead of only 100 people being able to grow the plant for the next couple years, but for some reason, there's only 1 clone of this plant. What happened to all the others and the other seed? Surely out of all the seed collected, more than 1 germinated? While seedlings are said to have a high mortality rate (I never lose more than about 10%), hardening off plants from TC kills at least as many if not more. When being moved from aseptic, 100% humidity conditions, to "natural" or "artificially natural" ones, TC plants are more than willing to die.
I think to some extent TC can help poaching, which of course is a good thing. TC certainly has its place. Let's look at a well known case; N. clipeata. This plant is virtually (if not already) extinct in the wild. IIRC, I think I heard there was a survey done in 96 or so, which only found about 5 mature plants. Overcollection killed or has almost killed off this species, but of course there are 3 TC clones. Unfortunately, there are only 3 TC clones, and at least 1 of these is male (see my website for more info:
www.freewebs.com/phissionkorps/clipeatastuff.htm). So, if the other 2 clones end up being male...can we really say that the species has been saved? Effectively saved from extinction, yes, but I would not call it salvation if only 1 sex is available. I have found a lab that has clipeata in TC, and they are not Wistuba plants. This could be groundbreaking...or they could be JDK plants, in which case they're probably the hybrid, and are of no help whatsoever. I think it would be neat if most plants were seed grown, and TC was used in between generations. Being able to sell mostly seed-origin plants would of course have a pretty decent lag period (a decade?). Since getting wild clipeata seed is out of the question, I'm hoping we see some seed produced from some of the "illegal" plants in Germany and/or Japan. Of course this is very hush-hush, and from working with the NcSP, I can tell you for certain that not too many people will be loose-lipped about the status of their clipeatas (even the 3 "legal" clones).
Yes, this is true. TC is not really an accurate way to describe the way Nepenthes are mass produced (as Rob pointed out in a previous thread here). Normal everyday seed is sown in vitro. These seeds then germinate, and grow. "TC" is really like letting a seedling grow, then taking a tiny little conventional style cutting from it, planting it in the same conditions, and repeating. Therefore, when you see something like "N. whatever from a single clone", that is the same plant...from the same seed. There could be 340,000 of them, but they are all exactly the same (unless some mutation arises). If say, MT has 4 different clones available, that is basically equivalent to 4 different seed-grown plants. You could order 40 plants, but only have 4 different possible genomes, barring random mutation. Mericulture of Nepenthes is certainly possible, and has been for at least 13 years. However, it is very difficult, and not very many places do it. There's a problem to overcome with Nepenthes, that is their meristematic tissue is infected with a fungus that will run rampant under TC conditions. To be successful, one has to be able to kill the fungus, without killing the tissue. This of course rules out bleach and many other things. I've long thought perhaps UV may work, but that would be a gateway to mutation. Another "far out" idea I've had is using acoustics, if it would be possible to cause the cells of the fungus to lyse at a different frequency than Nepenthes cells. One could also try to use a chitinase to digest the cell wall of the fungus, leaving the nep tissue intact. These are all just me throwing crazy and potentially/probably awfully wrong ideas out there. TC labs don't release or sell their protocols, which is the reason most places don't know how to do it. Each lab would have to discover it on their own essentially. There's a journal article written in 1994 that I could've sworn at least gave hints on the procedure. I'll see if I can find it again at some point. Might not happen though, since I don't have access to journal articles anymore since I'm no longer a student, and I am never on campus (the only place you can access them). Anyway, TC labs usually use the micropropagation method. Prices no doubt would come down if mericulture was widespread. Tenuis sells/sold for $180 IIRC, which not too many people are willing to spend on a nep. If that was mericultured, and sold even for $100, a ton more people would buy it, it would be a lot more readily available, etc. It takes a long time to produce 5 rooted cuttings (unless we're talking gracilis lol), but much, much shorter to cut a 2" section of meristematic tissue and make 40 plants out of it.
I would hope so. It seems with each passing day, there is more and more demand for seed grown material. Were I a nursery owner, I would take heed of that and offer more seed grown stuff, but would not phase out TC at all, as as I said, it certainly has a positive role to play. However, from a business perspective, I don't know if it is a smart idea to offer a majority of seed grown stuff. I couldn't imagine why not (if you had TC backing it in between generations), but if it is not, we will never see nurseries offering mostly SG stuff. Of course this all depends on species again (we ARE talking neps after all). Like I said, no one ATM (as bad as they may want to) can offer hamata or clipeata seed. I know there is at least 1 female jaq, and if you read the forums you know there's at least 1 male jaq. However, we probably won't see jaq seed any time in the foreseeable future. We are dealing with dioecious plants, "unfortunately".
Negative. See above. Not many places do it, but its far from impossible.
So, in closing, they both have their place, their advantages, and disadvantages. The only real drawback I can see with SG material is once it's gone, its gone (for at least a year or two if the same cross is made with the same parents). Do you have ANY clue how long I've been trying to get a hold of some of EP's plants? Even at that, looks like I'm going to have to wait a couple more years
.
Sorry for the novel ;D
PS: do I win the award for the longest post on this forum?
PPS: I hope you all enjoy lol. It took me almost 2 hours!
*there was a well known nursery here that was KNOWN to poach wild sarrs. They even asked a very prominent member of the NASC to field collect for them. It may have been them, or it may have been another nursery (pretty sure the same one though) that had what they called "flytrap farmers" who went out and field collected VFTs for the nursery to sell. I hadn't known about all this until after the fact, but thankfully someone told the gov't, and they are gone now (good riddance!).
, I think it's my time to share something in this community. ;D I live and grow nepenthes in Bangkok, Thailand. Nice to meet you all.
, I think it's my time to share something in this community. ;D I live and grow nepenthes in Bangkok, Thailand. Nice to meet you all.
.
... I think it should be longest and most informative!
