Greetings All, I'm new to the list and membership in the PBS. I have been avidly following the recent discourse (such as it has been) regarding small lot seed imports. Prior to seeing it here, I had no idea that I even needed a permit to import seeds from abroad. So that's something valuable from the flurry of posts right there. Being quite new to geophyte cultivation (via a fixation on succulent plants) and eager to acquire some seed, I figured I would go ahead and get a permit application submitted and then provide some empirical feedback to the list as I gain experience with the "official" approach of application and seed import. The online application procedure is clunky at best. I find it curious that I can mail in an application with no ID requirement, but for online transactions I need to go in person to provide ID before setting up an account. I consider myself reasonably web-savvy, and I perform many critical transactions over the web, and have never had to provide my ID in this way. If it's good enough for the IRS, shouldn't it be good enough for APHIS? The APHIS website specifically claims that they provide the web application process for speedier processing. Alas, it does not live up to this promise despite the information-rich content otherwise provided on the site. If they want more people to use the web portal to reduce paper use and speed up the process, then this impediment needs to be remedied, because for now it is a stopper. Perhaps their concern for fraud via the web is higher than for paper? For now I sent in my paper application (no ID required!). South Africa is the only country I'll be importing from, and I stated "all eligible species" in the species section, as directed in the instructions for when there are more taxa than will fit in the allotted space. FYI, that choice to not list specific taxa means its up to me to make sure I'm not importing CITES listed species. I'll post to the list when I receive the permit to give an idea of turn around time. Once I receive the permit, I'll go ahead and follow the procedure to import some seeds to see how it works out. I'll also post my experiences in that endeavor, for the edification of others. Here is a thorny question that I hate to ask: how does this small lot seed import permit requirement affect the PBX? I can see this being a can of worms not only conceptually, but it seems the mechanics of actually implementing it could be well beyond tedious, if not downright prohibitive. I can imagine that the PBX is already a considerable effort for Dell (thanks!) without an extra bureaucratic layer. Regards, Byron