Bulbists, I'm sorry to hear about these mishaps(het hem) with seed importation. I thought my case was a fluke, but now I hear that it wasn't just me. I have a small seed lot import permit as well as a plant import permit from the countries I specified on the application. I use the mailing labels , and always send a copy of my permit to the seed vendor. Recently I ordered seed from someone in England, and received a call from the APHIS office in Seattle, stating that my seed was being held because the permit had expired , and was the wrong permit. After going online to check, I saw that my permit expired in 2015. I called USDA in Washington DC to try to iron things out, and about 2 hours of waiting on the phone, being transferred to this office, that office, I was instructed to re-apply for the permits. OK, I went online, with much rigamurrow, I completed the application. The next day, the government was shut down. I supposed had 10 days to re-apply before the seed would be destroyed. Today I get an email from APHIS saying their is nothing they can do. Sadly, I learned that trying to do the Right thing, is the Wrong thing to do, when you're dealing with government agencies. I hope the best for the rest of you who import seed, and/ or plants. RickK On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 2:17 PM, James Waddick <jwaddick@kc.rr.com> wrote: > Dear Diane, > > On Nov 7, 2013, at 2:14 PM, Diane Whitehead <voltaire@islandnet.com> > wrote: > > > > In September I sent seeds to a club based in the U.S. I have just > received the seeds back. They passed inspection in Seattle, > > but it looks as though the mailing label to send the seeds onward was > lost. > > > Renewing the permit is one thing, actual import is yet another. > USDA works in mysterious ways. As co-chair of an international seed > exchange we get seed from over a dozen different countries and the > specifics are unreal. For a long while, seeds were inspected only at the > APHIS station in Jamaica NY near JFK Int. Airport. The import labels > clearly said Jamaica NY. Trouble is many seeds went to Jamaica - the > country, first. The Jamaican Postal Service made up rubber stamps that read > soothing like ‘Sent to Jamaica by Mistake’. Needless to say this caused > delays. > > And at one time they must have piled up seed imports until they > got around to them. Seeds would take 2 days to get to NY from almost > anywhere in the world and sit in the Inspection station for months. The > worst one I recall sat in NY for 5 months, passed inspection and was > promptly shipped back to the sender in France. 3 days later the original > sender readdressed the packet to me and it was received without further > inspection. > > We had many delays not always the fault of the sender or > recipient. I have had a few phone calls from USDA asking about seeds. My > favorite was in regard to Iris seeds sent from Hungary. There were 20 > packets all labelled and fairly common seed exchange materials, but one was > simply labelled "Iris sp.”. The inspector was concerned that this might > seeds of a wild collected, endangered species prohibited from import such > as Iris lacustris ( native to the northern Great Lakes). I was able to > convince the inspector that this particular donor often sent Spuria Irises > and this was simply an abbreviation for Iris spuria. The seed passed. It > seems highly unlikely that a grower in Hungary would be sending wild > collected Iris lactrustris. > > Of course there are even more problems with donors (Dell must have > some stories) I won’t go into. Mostly a thankless job. > > Best wishes and Diane I hope your returned seeds were not > headed to SIGNA. If so let me know and I’ll work with you. Best > Jim > > > > James Waddick > 8871 NW Brostrom Rd > Kansas City, MO 64152-2711 > USA > Phone 816-746-1949 > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ >