Thanks, Karyn. Keeping fingers, eyes, and knees crossed ;0) Gloria

Thanks Karyn, will keep my fingers crossed!!!

Karen

okey dokey..I'm all crossed..did I miss something? Why am I crossed? ~~ What's goin on?
Reminds me of that commercial where the whole small business office has to keep their fingers crossed all the time, to hope nothing goes wrong, lol.
Daniella

Daniella,
I believe Karyn is seeing if her husband can import some beautiful European brugs to America for her and some other members who said they are interested. Karyn, let us know if he gets permission and what ones you will be getting, I may be interested in having some too :)

Fingers and toes are crossed!!! Don't ask me how I crossed my toes but I did.LOL

Rigo74

Keeping my fingers crossed for ya! Wow that sounds exciting. :) Keep us posted!! Good luck!

Vanessa
aka Acacius48

Hey Vanessa!!!! Nice to see you join in! Welcome.. I hope to see ya around.. Are you new to Brugs or an Old Pro???

Karyn ... Very Cool!!!!!
You be nice to that man you hear...LOL
Kylie

I'm gonna beg, borrow or steal if these babies come through......

I have my eyes crossed, lol. Trying to catch up on reading some posts. I haven't been able to get on much lately. You know I am in line, lol.

Best of luck and I sure hope this is done correctly and you know whom you are buying from as we have seen to many growers over there with diseases.

KHT DH has been in the wholesale flower/plant business over 35 years and has been importing from Europe for the same amount of time. I trust all his suppliers.
Karyn

karyn1, you have email as I won't say this on the site.

Chena/Kylie thank you for the warm welcome!! I am a newbie to brugs. :) I got some cuttings in late summer/fall that I am enjoying to see grow! I got tiny little flower bud on one of them!!! I am so excited to see my first brug bloom! I have been drooling all over everyones pictures here. haha. I have been learning from everyones posts for a while and I look forward to getting to know all of you!
Sincerely,
Vanessa

Good luck with your brugs Vanessa. I hope they do well for you. They are really addictive, lol.

Welcome, Vanessa!
Theresa

A warm welcome Vanessa!!!

Karen

Welcome, Vanessa!
Theresa

Hello Vanessa!

Karyn I have to agree with Karma. You really need to be cautious. It's not so much a matter of trust, because virus is so prevalent over there they mostly just consider it a fact of life and try to find cultivars that can resist dying from it. The two-year quarantine is law, and it may seem crazy but this is one that I would sure strongly recommend you follow. Keep these far away from your other brugs for at least a couple years to be sure you don't destroy your entire collection.
I know at least one US grower, an early pillar in the brug community, who lost his entire priceless collection from just this kind of situation.
Be safe! :^)
- Tom

So far I haven't heard anything. If available I will absolutely get them but will take precautions. Any laws regarding the export of plants the brokers are well aware of. This is their livelihood. They aren't like us who grow these as a hobby.
Karyn

Karyn, does that pertain to seeds also?

Just wondering if seeds are more readily available. Do seeds carry virri?

I think I told him to ask about seeds as well. I have to check. I can't remember if KHT said that seeds could be a problem as well or not. I'll have to check with her again.
Karyn

Good Morning Gang!! Yes, a cert. should be obtained to be on the safe side as there has been some talk on if seeds carry virus or not and this is a way it can be tracked just in case. You can use the 1 part bleach to 9 parts water to soak seeds if you feel there is a concern. But one should remember too it maybe a fact of life as these do carry a virus gene? Fact of life isn't what I would call it but ya know keeping ones collection should be ones only goal! I went around when I was at ABADS when some folks, (grrrnthumb I have lost count of those that were infected) were told to clean up the best they could and nothing was said about quarantine their collections for a period of time? Common sense is if you don't you will risk the spread and by keeping mum well to me it's like a wildfire. grrrnthumb, Karyn1 is asking all the right questions and I'm sure this will be done right as she knows where to ask.

Not good news. Since DH's suppliers aren't the ones that grow the brugs he'd have to get phyto certs and copies of all import/export agricultural licenses (something like that) from whomever is growing the brugs. That gets very expensive and it puts his flower shipments at risk for being held up by customs. He doesn't want to run that risk and I can't blame him (at least not too much lol). I did tell him to continue asking about seeds because they don't have the same requirements.
Karyn

PLease thank yout DH for trying and thanks to you for "encouraging" him! Gloria

Karma hit the nail on the head concerning the topic of quarantining infected plants. I had my collection infected via receiving infected cuttings. And it was heartbreaking to have to dispose of such wonderful brugs, such as Mango Crush, Bebe, Tropical Sunset, etc.

SHOULD your collection become infected with one of the many types of "SB", don't put yourself down. Nowadays it is almost guaranteed, that at some point in time you will experience some species of Stem Blight in your collection.

The only 100% fool proof way of not getting stem blight through trades, is not to trade at all. Other than that, strict quarantining of newly acquired plant material is the next best practice. And this is what too many brug collectors have not done, only to pay the piper in the end. And I include myself in this later group, I learned the hard way. In order for your brug collection to stay SB free, the brug collector is compelled to practice strict quarantine measures.

Many of you have heard and/or read about SB, short for Stangelbrand, a German word for stem blight. This stem blight devastated many German brug collections several years ago, in particular, the suaveolens species. For some reason this species is not very resistant to stem blight, especially the yellows. This started the trend of attempting to breed out all of the suaveolens genes in the progeny.

Now this is just my opinion, based on researching stem blights and other diseases that brugs are susceptible of contracting. There are many different native species of stem blight right here in the U.S., so that presents the problem that our brugs could possibly become infected with one of our very own species of stem blight, and not the German variant. So we have to keep a keen eye out for any symptoms of stem blight and deal with it accordingly.

So to sum it up, prevention is the key to a healthy brugmansia collection. And I will not go into my thoughts of trying to breed out all suaveolens genes. That is another hornetÂs nest in of itself. Which I don't feel like discussing right now. LOL!!

Sorry to rant on so long about this subject, it is time to get off of the Soap Box now.

I've read some about stem blight but how does it present itself? I've seen photos of severely infected plants. I've never seen a newly infected plant. Can you see early on if a plant has SB? The most I've had to deal with in the past has been a mosiac virus, thank goodness.
Karyn

Hi Karyn,

Besides the black spots that are normally seen at the leaf nodes on SB infected plants, you may also see signs of stem blight on the leaf stems. Here is a picture of Charles Grimaldi with dark brown to black spots on the leaf stems. It has been a couple of years since I have seen SB on my brugs so I can't remember if this symptom is present before or at the same time that the black spots are visable.

And of note, just because that a brug does not have suaveolens genes in it, does not mean that it cannot become infected with stem blight. The first year that I had Ecuador Pink, it was absolutely infected with a type of SB by that fall. Now this is a pure versicolor species. So you have to watch all of your brugs, no matter what the species or hybrid.

{{gwi:457795}}

That kind of looks like a canker on a tree.
Karyn

davidwv, thank you for the support! There are many other things to look for besides SB when you are trading. We have seen a rapid spread due to trading and lack of education. Back to lurkdom. . . .