My two cents worth

[ehanes7612]

This corner of the orchid market is not based of supply and demand, its based off of being specialized items at a specialized grower/nursery grows, they set sales it to make profit not to get everyone that walks through there door to buy one. These are not your standard Phal. or grocery store orchids, They're plants that only reach a select few that want this type of orchid in there collection making them specialized items, there for the market has little to do with pricing. This is why Andy's or any other specialty grower asks a fair price thats set for there plants. On top of that.... your going to pay even more for a genetically proven plant. Would you pay $5,000 for a orchid that has proven record..... Someone will!!!

there is a distinction between single growth plants that havent bloomed and those that have bloomed with great flowers, the latter capturing what I call 'antique' status, thus becoming one of a kind and only available to those who have greater financial resources. BUT even in the small niche market of sandy multiflorals, the former still adhere to supply and demand, i have seen this play out on ebay, an article by parkside orchids, talking to vendors and slippertalk, and orchid shows...ten years ago the demand for sandy hybrids was so great (because of the novelty interest and there were so few) that people would pay hundreds for anything, i did this myself. Now, with so many hybrids available and much of the novelty worn off (and of course the recession)...the demand for these plants has waned or perhaps, (i concede) stayed the same..but along with supply increasing (the effect of ebay)...the price has come down...once the price goes down, the demand tends to increase again (associated risk/cost ratios go down and people also tend to buy more than one, thus increasing their chance for good blooms (HINT!!!!)..and people sell their plants..of course, as Leo implies...balance is essential for the grower/vendor , so as not to reach the 'wal mart' scenario

 

[Leo Schordje]

Yep, when you have been watering a seedling for 7 or more years, you simply can not afford to sell it for $20. If nobody buys at the price I feel I need, I get to keep the plant. I like sanderianum, keeping it is not all bad.

 

[SelectOrchids]

In short, yes one can produce and sell sanderianum hybrids blooming size for a few dollars. Wild collected plants, mass breeding, mass sowing and growing in cheap potting media, very cheap workers that have no medicare, warmer country than the USA or Europe. They can compete with Europe or the USA and crash the market. Now it belongs to everyone to think whether it is fair or not. Here in Vietnam if I want I can make blooming size clumps of Paphiopedilum helenae, excellent roots, excellent leaves, out of wild plants. At 2 USD for a pot full of growths, very well grown, I would still make a huge profit. But they will not be from high quality parents, clearly.

Having a real breeding program with real motherplants, not pieces of junk, is indeed expensive, and there are prices that no one would go below. seedlings of roth from my Mt Millais, I would never sell them blooming size for 20US, even if Taiwan sells generic roths for 10US blooming size at the moment. It depends on the quality, and what people want really. The Orchid Zone has dozen of thousands of plants they sell yearly that are far more expensive than the Taiwanese plants, 10-20-50-100USD for Maudiae types out of their latest breeding, but they still have customers. I think, as a seller, it is important to make high quality, original plants, then there is a market at a fair price. Trying to compete with meganurseries in Mainland China or Taiwan, with prices matching theirs, is stupid and foolish (and at the end, the quality is absolutely not the same).

As for the prices of sanderianum hybrids, it will go up in the coming years again, not as high as before, but it will. Most sanderianum hybrids from Taiwan were made from fresh wild sanderianum, bloomed and pollinated. Granted, some hybrids had great blooms. But now there is a shortage of sanderianum in Taiwan for this kind of breeding, and the collectors want very large orders to deliver a new batch to Taiwan. As a result, they no longer bloom enough sanderianum to make massive batches of hybrids. The same happened with gigantifolium, they made a lot of hybrids, but they had to get in emergency new wild plants this summer, because they did not have enough blooming plants left anymore in Taiwan ( the previous batch died, except some plants). China is entering the competition too, buy batches of wild plants, make heaps of flasks, sell them cheap. But at a point, where the wild cannot supply enough plants, some of those hybrids will become rare, and expensive.