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Re: Tropica Plants



D.Chang writes:

> I have drooled at the Tropica site hoping in what I once thought was a vain
>  aspiration to own these plants, especially those exotic swords. I have
>  since learned they are available in the US from some growers...don't ask me
>  HOW they got them.  I don't ask and they don't tell.

These plants ARE available from U.S. growers, the oerative word being 
"growers".  They didn't sneak them into the country, they grew them here 
using the same techniques that Tropica does.  Some of the starters may have 
been plants that were picked clean and then brought into the US legally, but 
most probably came from the same native tropical locations that Tropica's did.

> I don't believe they
>  are imported them in "numbers", but I speculate individuals may have
>  brought samples in from Canada perhaps. When available, they cost an
>  arm-a-leg-and-a-left-eye!  

Any plants brought from Canada also have to be bare-rooted.  The US 
government is not targeting Tropica, Denmark , or even Europe.  They just 
want to be able to inspect the root systems of importeed plants for 
parasites.  Tropica plants probably have a lower possibility of pest 
infection that anyone's, but you gotta have rules, and they gotta be enforced 
evenly, across the board.  If you allow rock-wool plants in, then some 
less-tan scrupulous Asian growers will stick plants in rock-wool for a week 
and ship them, because potted plants bring a higher price.  I'm not saying 
all of them would, but how do you tell who's cheating?  Some of us have been 
in this hooby long enough to remember the Asian Angelfish blight, and the 
sorrow it caused us.  Moste Asian breeders were shipping healthy fish, but a 
few were only interested in profit, and knew that their fish would die and 
take all the other angels with them.  They shipped them anyway.

>  More information than this I am loath to give anyone who calls himself
>  "William Bennet" who has NEVER posted to the list before. 

William Bennet has posted here many times.  If he is THAT William Bennet, he 
is an honest and honorable man.  I swear he's not going to bite you.

Bob Dixon