Hello from Australia

[mothhawk]

Hi, Starling and a warm welcome. I'm another who has no idea what the plants you mention look like.

Please show us some pics. Are they Oz natives, or tropicals you've acquired from other countries?

[Knight of Albion]

A very warm welcome to the forum, dear Starling.

[jonny the plant pot]

Gday and welcome

[Starling]

Thanks everyone, what an incredibly active site! So glad I chanced upon it.

I'll upload some pictures of the fruit trees I'm growing a little later today. To answer some of the questions:

a) Most of the exotic fruits I grow are Asian, or south American.
B) Quarantine is indeed a nightmare in Australia. The definitions and rules change virtually every month, and nobody can really keep up with it all. A lot of the legislation also isn't intelligible, and collectors such as myself invariably have to do things that might not be completely legal in order to secure new varieties and species. ICON has made partial biopirates of us all--the legislation is so complicated, and so convoluted, that it's almost impossible not to be made one, even inadvertently, at some point anyway. Incompetence is also rife. Legal seeds get destroyed, illegal seeds get passed even whe they are inspected. I can't be sure, but I don't think even the ground staff can keep up with it all. I say this based on experience. Another thing to consider is that the shadow of national & international agricorps is long, and these have lobbied very hard in efforts to pretty much destroy any seed trading/ gardening arenas which they can't profit from.

c) Fingerlimes are an incredible fruit, and I look forward to trading them with UK based members, because they are definitely viable for a lot of you guys. I will upload some pictures of wild types, and their natural habitat, a little later.

D) A list of some of what I'm growing, many are small and have yet to fruit.

hylocereus ( Dragonfruit)
opuntia ( prickly pear)
abiu
longan
white sapote
black sapote ( chocolate pudding fruit)
fingerlimes
paradise nut
macadamia nut ( have the biggest tree you'll ever see, it must be ancient, on the property)
dwarf banana
red banana
ice cream banana
papaya ( 6 varieties)
muntigia
sapote
lychee
mangoes ( nam doc mai)
wax jambu/ wax apple
guava
rollinia deliciosa
sugar apple
pimento
cinnamon

cheers
luke

[veggiechicken]

Thanks for "clarifying" the import regulations, Starling. What a minefield!!

This seems a good point to draw your attention to the Seed/Plant Swap rules at

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...nce_76437.html

In particular
"All members requesting seeds/plants (for swap or SAE) should :
have been members of the Vine for at least 3 months AND posted more than 50 posts"

Any posts asking for specific seeds will be removed until you meet these conditions.

I feel obliged to add that, given the additional complication of the Australian import regulations, any exchanges that take place are at the participant's own risk.

Sorry to appear a killjoy but Rules is Rules - as much as we want to bend them

[Starling]

Quarantine

Thanks for "clarifying" the import regulations, Starling. What a minefield!!

This seems a good point to draw your attention to the Seed/Plant Swap rules at

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...nce_76437.html

In particular
"All members requesting seeds/plants (for swap or SAE) should :
have been members of the Vine for at least 3 months AND posted more than 50 posts"

Any posts asking for specific seeds will be removed until you meet these conditions.

I feel obliged to add that, given the additional complication of the Australian import regulations, any exchanges that take place are at the participant's own risk.

Sorry to appear a killjoy but Rules is Rules - as much as we want to bend them

Veggie,

I thought I'd update my original post RE Australian Quarantine.

The Quarantine Act ( AM. 1998) is set up so that the importer bears full culpability in the event of biomaterial being destroyed as a point of Illegality, or congeniality. As such, there is no risk to any sender of biomaterial under Australian Law--only to the importer his or herself.

That said, there are many statutes of limitations in place to ensure that 'backyard' collectors don't get nailed to the wall owing to infringements accrued, for example, through misguided ebay purchases. I would estimate that I've had close to 50 notices of biomaterial destruction in my time collecting seed. Most of these have been owing to updated definitions on what SP's are permitted, and which are not. This a problem compounded by the fact that what is illegal or not is dependant not only on what the SP is, but its end use, and that taxonomical definitions often change suddenly; what was though to be belonging to a particular genus turns out to belong to another, and is subsequently reclassified as a non-permitted species. There's really no way to keep track of this unless you're on the coalface of it all, because he DAFF and ICON pages aren't updated sufficiently as to keep pace with the changes. Like all Governmental departments, inefficiency is par for the course--but given the budget limitations some of them have, it's not surprising. Basically, the deal is that it's easier to ban everything rather than negotiate the complexities of risks presented by a plethora of different species, and so every year, the list of what can be legally imported gets thinner. Policy writers and judiciaries are aware of this, and as such, penances do, to be fair, fit the crime--and are meager. I have never been so much as fined as a result of an infringement. I believe the largest penalty ever doled out was in the instance of somebody who tried to import a shipping container full of exotics from China without declaring any of it. He was fined 10,000 AUD. And rightly so, really.

A lot of it comes own to common sense, sensibly assessing risk, and ethics. I won't send Szygium seeds to Brazil because there is a type of seed boring insect here that affects them. I don't want something like that getting into the Amazon--it could be a total unmitigated disaster! There is nothing in Brazilian quarantine that excludes Szygiums for importation, and I'm not legally obligated to hold off sending them, but I pointedly refuse to do it because the risk is unacceptable. So even though I miss out on some great species because I refuse to trade Szygiums SP, I stick to my guns because it is the right thing to do. I also won't import any Musa SP material, because panama virus is a very, very bad deal and could wipe out the Australian banana industry in a heartbeat. But yeah--if something is banned because of a fungus or something that is already present in Australia and has been for close to a century, then yes--I'm probably going to choose to ignore that protocol. Coals to Newcastle is the expression, I believe. At that point, I might choose to exercise a little epistemological selectivity at the labeling level. Most of us do at some point or other. It is what it is.

A perusal of ABS statistics will prove very concisely that it isn't collectors who are bringing in the nasties--it's mass imported fruits from countries with hygiene standards considerably lower than Australia. Fruits, nuts--all kinds of things are imported in metric tonnes from all kinds of places every day. That's how it happens.

It's an aspect of Australian policy that is screaming out for reform.

Below is a link to the ICON pages. You will notice that it is a labyrinthine, convoluted tangle--keep in mind, what you're seeing probably isn't up to date. And chances are the info is incorrect--for when you call a staff member, they'll likely as not tell you that the page you're looking at in real time either doesn't exist (yes, believe it--I was told this while actually looking at the open page in real time) or is incorrect.

ICON Query - Department of Agriculture

ICON Query - Department of Agriculture