Favorite Seed & Bulb Sources

Kevin D. Preuss hyline@tampabay.rr.com
Tue, 11 Mar 2003 04:40:11 PST
Diana ,
Your statement
" Unfortunately, early in my bulb collecting career it was a frequent
problem until I learned whom to avoid.  Usually the problems have been with
virused bulbs, and these days I buy very few bulbs from commercial
enterprises, preferring to play it safe and grow as many species as possible
from seed.  I learned the hard way!"
Goes the same for me. Too many sources offered bad material. As an early
collector I must have been labled "SUCKER" , or least "GREENHORN", as many
folks from the bulb society lined up to swap plants with me, mostly for
Griffinias, and in return I got virused hippeastrums and other varipous
amaryllids.  Knowing what I know now, I find it very hard to believe that
most did not know what they doing.  I am not sure if it was to rid their
collection of virused bulbs, or worse, with the intention of diisseminating
the virus into another's collection.  One even boasted to me afterwaards
that he was going to tissue culture my Griffinias sent to him.  He has faded
away since then. I had to discard most of my early material.
This has taught me, In the past 4-5 years I have to be wary of sources,
staying w/ a few reputable folks.  Also seed propagation of species is most
desirable.  This reduces the risk of infection.  Plants will still contract
various diseases and must be discarded.

I can testify to never receiving a bad bulb from Telos,  Mainly Amaryllids!

Kevin D. Preuss
http://www.amaryllis-plus.com/




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