# Another nail in the coffin of US orchid growers



## Ray (Feb 7, 2018)

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced last week that it has finalized a rule allowing dendrobium species in growing medium to be exported from Taiwan into the U.S. This new rule will take effect March 30.

What makes dendrobiums safe to import is the “systems approach.” This approach protects against plant pests and diseases coming into the U.S. by requiring Taiwanese greenhouses to register and go through monitoring of specific sanitation and pest control practices. Participating growers must sign a written agreement to comply with U.S. regulations and allow for inspectors to inspect their facilities. In addition, each shipment that comes in must have a phytosanitary certificate.

Several other orchid species are already allowed to be exported from Taiwan into the U.S, including phalaenopsis and oncidium.


----------



## Tom Reddick (Feb 7, 2018)

If what was true 20 years ago with the Hawaiian growers where the pot plant market really got underway is true for Taiwan today, this is a big deal because many Dendrobiums could have an even lower retail price point than Phals or Oncidiums/related intergenerics currently marketed in this manner.

Is this an accurate guess on my part Ray? I used to rep for Carmela at shows back then when in high school and college- and I often spiked my booths with plants from Orchid Center to have some inexpensive flowering plants to sell (Phals were still a hit with growers back then and not yet pot plant staples- so Carmela would send me seedlings of recent crosses). I always focused on Dendrobiums because they were dirt cheap in addition to having a better shot than many other things at surviving with amateur care. 

If memory serves, back in the early to mid 90s wholesale by the case of 24 plants, standard Catts (and not great ones) were $12-15 each in bud, Phals were around $10 each in low spike, and Dendrobiums in bud/spike were $4-5 each.

Phals are much cheaper now- or they must be considering Phals retail for $15-25 most places. No market for Catts, and I see few Dendrobiums, and usually miniatures when I do. This has always struck me as odd because Phalaenopsis-type Dendrobiums were a no-brainer for pot plant sales back when I was on the show circuit. Guess now I know why they have not been a leading staple in recent years.


----------



## abax (Feb 7, 2018)

Here's the thing Ray; we don't have to buy these imports. We can ask where
the plants came from and assume the seller KNOWS where they came from.


----------



## Ozpaph (Feb 8, 2018)

but if USA growers cant supply product at a price the public will pay what's the alternative?


----------



## Secundino (Feb 8, 2018)

Welcome to the real world.

If a market can't produce in competitiveness this is what happens. It's called capitalism.
And please don't complain - in the USA you can produce in your colony Hawaii under tropical conditions. 
In Europe the production is completely under glass and there are imports (halfgrown and grown up/flowering) from Taiwan and Thailand mostly. And it works - though not as good in GB.

Where I live there is nothing. Just the few no name imports from netherlands mass-production.


----------



## TyroneGenade (Feb 8, 2018)

There is a silver lining.

The cheap stuff will go to Walmart, Lowes etc... And people will buy them and then realize they don't know how to grow them. So they will join internet forums where they will be exposed to more "exotic" hybrids etc... And then they will get hooked on orchids and buy the expensive stuff produced by US growers.

Just how many US growers will close before a new equilibrium is reached is unknown---this attrition is sad and painful!---but I don't think this is the nail in the coffin for the whole industry. I think the local market has been in decline a long time in any case. Compare Carter & Holmes catalog now to what it was 20 years ago? I don't know if they has much to do with imports so much as it reflects a failure of the hobby to snare more young people. Maybe cheap orchids will help snare more people and we have it all wrong, that suddenly there will be more demand from local growers for better, more diverse, plants.

P.S. Maybe Pres. Trump will come to the rescue of orchid growers by imposing high tariffs on orchid imports. Then we would have cause to name an orchid hybrid after him. Perhaps a particularly odious Bulbo hybrid. oke:


----------



## My Green Pets (Feb 8, 2018)

> Perhaps a particularly odious Bulbo hybrid. oke:



Nice.

With all the plant people on YouTube and Instagram that I see, I think the orchid crowd may have shifted but I can't imagine that it is diminishing. 

If you are not utilising these media to expand your orchid experiences, you really are missing out, not only on seeing beautiful, unusual, and interesting plants, but also on connecting with other people (including many young ones!).

Ed (phraggy on here) started his own YouTube channel and has gotten so much positive feedback from viewers because, unlike the myriad beginners and wannabes, his years of experience shine through and his plants are gorgeous.


----------



## CarlG (Feb 9, 2018)

The other thing that will happen is that the dendrobium imports will wind up in hotels, offices, and etc., exposing people to more and different kinds of orchids.


----------



## ehanes7612 (Feb 9, 2018)

Well, the biggest demise of Orchid growers is by far the internet. With an easy search people can peruse through thousands of images of orchids, something that was impossible thirty years ago...if you dont know how to model your business to provide a diverse portfolio of orchids by exploiting Ebay and clever marketing techniques unique to the internet, then most likely your business will die out. I have heard that even in Hawaii, growers are shutting down retail operations of any kind to instead fully commit to wholesale for US retailers who sell mostly online. Hobbyists who limit themselves to one species or narrow range of hybrids probably share 1 % of the market..(which is something we all probably know)...the typical new orchid grower these days wants variety...and most of that variety comes from outside the US


----------



## Tom Reddick (Feb 9, 2018)

Some good thoughts here- especially Tyrone and Ed- but I think a few things are worth noting.

1. Being a cutting edge orchid hybridizer, much like having a Haute Couture line in Paris, has almost never been a richly profitable enterprise for anyone. Even looking back 60+ years to the heyday of the great US orchid nurseries, the bread and butter income that put food on the table and funded the rest was in the cut flower market (which today has morphed to being a combination of pot plant and cut flower market.)

2. Ever since I started growing orchids in the early 1980s, and looking back to friendships and professional relationships I had with growers who got started in the 60s and 70s, more often than not the most highly regarded hybridizers made their real money elsewhere. Orchids were a side income, or a retirement dream. Sure many of these individuals turned (and in some case still turn) a profit- but not enough by itself to sustain the pristine growing conditions and cash flow needs to run a top hybridizing program long term, and certainly not enough to sustain the lifestyles to which they were generally accustomed.

Taking 1 and 2 into account, it is a bit of a continuum from there- and a lot of one's judgment as a full or part time commercial vendor depends on your perspective based on when you came into the game.

You also have to take into account the general public and its trends when it comes to what I call "dedicated hobbies"- meaning there is some serious work involved outside of just buying and collecting something.

The late 80s and early 90s is when orchids as a pot plant market really got underway in my opinion. It was led by Hawaiian growers and very often it was closely aligned with cutting edge hybridizing.

It then evolved into mericloning, and vast population of substandard plants when mericloning was taken to excess.

In recent years it has gotten worse to where you now have not just that phenomenon, but also a great emphasis on so-called "harlequin" Phals (which is a nice way of saying genetically unstable crap) and even plants that have flowers artificially dyed blue, green and all sorts of other impossible colors in much the same manner as poor baby chickens sold on the roadside for Easter a generation ago.

I personally do not buy into the argument that this cheapening of the hobby to attract a wider audience does anything to eventually expand the population of more serious growers. Just ask the AOS how that went. Or indeed look at head count at your local orchid society. Internet forums as well- how many serious growers are there on the small number of orchid forums that are catered to specialized growing?

Long story short, I think there are 2 issues here. On the one hand we have a shift of the bread and butter- food on the table revenue streams that orchids can generate shifting from the continental US to Hawaii, and now to Asia- and all along the way larger volume retailers taking over more of the retail side of the equation.

On the other hand, you have a certain "dumbing down" effect that comes and goes in waves in any society. Not just orchids- quilting is down quite a lot, as is paperweight collecting, gemcutting, antique wood furniture and restoration, fishkeeping- any number of serious hobby and specialized retailer/service landscapes are shrinking.

They will come back in time- but it won't be over Dendrobiums setting new low retail points or the next "Finding Nemo" movie.

The urgent problem I see with the Dendrobium thing is shows. Good vendors at local shows are a key to finding those few potential orchid growers who will do the research, find other good vendors, get involved and also seek out internet forums. But those vendors are not going to come to many of the smaller shows when they know they are going to be selling plants alongside pot plant vendors undercutting them on price in a big way. A very few vendors at certain shows can make their money, plus get the value of presence exhibiting, just with cutting edge seedlings. But for most- blooming plant sales to newcomers are a key revenue stream. Adding Dendrobiums into the mix as cheap pot plants can make shows much harder IMHO.

Our hobby will survive either way, but the sooner the general public stops thinking of orchids as something you can get at the grocery store for $10, the better off all of us who are serious growers will be.


----------



## terryros (Feb 10, 2018)

Thinking back over the 40 or so years I have been involved superficially or deeply in hobby orchid growing, I think I agree. However, I don&rsquo;t think it is a given that every hobby comes back in a meaningful way. Think stamp collecting. I think that hobbies that are expensive to do well and require a good amount of time and patience are not assured of a strong future. We may be only a finger in the leaking dike, but those of us who can afford it should really try and support their closest orchid greenhouse with purchases and maybe even one further away with mail order. The quality of my life would take a serious hit if my beloved Orchids Limited disappeared.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro


----------

