buffy

Hi Team: I've been in email contact with Dr. Josef Margraf at TianZi Nature's Product in China. Initially, my sole intent was to acquire healthy corms of Musa xishuangbannensis for personal enjoyment. As our discussions have continued, what both Dr. Margraf and I realize, is that there's opportunity beyond simple retail transactions. Specifically, many of us are extremely excited about growing Musa xishuag., but our desire should consist of more. We should desire to both grow and protect this species.

What I propose is the possibility of our members creating some type of partnership with TianZi to protect the irreplaceable habitat of these bananas, and so many other species, and acquire specimens for our collections. It's a win-win situation, for everyone involved. Specifically now, I just want to solicit everyone for ideas. Talk to me.

Bob

I would be very leery of any dealings with TianZi. When I first joined over a year ago there was someone who after repeated attempts was unable to obtain shipment of plants (could it have been you?). I don't remember the exact posting but the problems went on for quite a while without getting resolved if I recall correctly.

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sunfish

Abnshrek

Sounds like an email rip-off scheme

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I'm a Nannerhead :^)

mbfirey

Buffy why the change of heart with TianZi- your earlier post had was very detailed of how bad things went?
Ever heard the saying "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice....."?

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chong

When I was growing up, the quote was "Once burned, twice shy!"

frog7994

I know this might sound rudd but with all the things that China has done over the years with there poducts they sent over to the US I just don't trust them. As a people there like anyone else but I do not trust there companys.

frog7994

well look at chinas history in the long run it has always been a loseing proposition, I do not think that has very change. I went there with my cousin he bought 18 farm tractors for his home country ( not the USA) and he is the toughest busness guy I have ever seen. They took on a great tour of the factory put us up in a nice hotel but when they went to make the deal wow! what a change more thatn 3 hrs and he would not give up a dime till they were off the boat and past customs.then he said he would pay them. I can't tell you it was really suprising how tough you had to be to get any thing out of them. If he was American i do not think the deal would have been made. but once we out of the country he told me if he had givvin them any money at all once he got back home that the last he would have seen of it.He said never pay them up frount for any thing !

51st state

hey buffy
well up for some of that. happy to commit to a reasonable quantity of a number of the species they show if it helps put a deal together. I've never been able to get any sense out of them. please PM me.

I haven't fessed up to the wife about the 200 naners in transit to me from India at the moment yet

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curriedrice

Let me first say I don't know enough about TianZi to comment.

Having done business with China & Taiwan over the years. I think you have to remember that this is a emerging country. Credit markets, brand names and being an reliable source are coming into importance.

These are people that have been poor, have emerged from Communism and have been screwed by their government, other companies and everyone else.

It just makes you more careful about who you do business with and how the deal happens. And there will be some that'll be more than willing to take advantage of you.

On the other hand, I have regular Chinese vendors I business with that really care my business, going the extra mile (or kilometer) to earn my business.

Last thing I always keep in mind about politics in China is the government represents its own interest and the people are expected to follow.

frog7994

your piont is well taken.

buffy

Change of heart? I must admit, I was terribly frustrated with Dr. Margraf when I posted my summary of the transaction. And what I composed was absolutely accurate. Burned? Burned suggests there was malicious intent. Foolish thinking on my part? I disagree.

The key to this is aligned interest. If you listen to Dr. Margraf's interview on the linked thread, he details what's important to him. We, as banana growers, know what's important to us. If we can find a way to fuse these together, then everyone benefits.

I must admit, I'm a little disappointed with how narrow the thought process has evolved. Again, I'd like to hear suggestions on what we can do together to save habitat and grow special plant material.

mbfirey

I'm sorry but it's hard to have any faith after:
You say they only refunded half the money- any well intentioned trustworthy company would have given a full refund.

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51st state

Hi Buffy

As I understand the history here, Tian Zi initially sold both seeds and plants, indeed it was they who originally brought Musella Lasiocarpa to market. As with any 'new' product this commanded a fairly high price, this in turn encouraged Tian Zi to propagate/plant up many Lasiocarpa. However, the high price encouraged the dutch (and Agristarts?) to TC the plant, crashing the price (as we have also seen with 'Siam Ruby') and leaving Tian Zi with hundreds unsold and unsaleable. A tough lesson. They have subsequently stumbled through poor/inconsistent communications, pricing and shipping issues.

The way forward here is to give the plants a reasonable commercial value. This will encourage limited scale commercial nursery production without a sky high price (so as not to attract TC). They must appreciate that the worldwide market is small. I believe it initially to be say 100 per species (50 US, 50 Europe?) with an ongoing annual demand of say 50. This approach could, when applied not only to Musa but to the other unusual exotics in the region, provide a sustainable local business.

This is where I am in trading with the Indian growers. aside from what they 'list' as standard offerings I have given pre-orders for other species/cultivars which they have in turn sourced from local farmers on my behalf. This is the closest I can get to 'giving back' and hopefully to encourage the continued growth of some of the now superceeded local cultivars.

The idea of a 'partnership' is good. I see no reason why we cannot operate as a co-operative collating orders from .org members, this could be accomplished by 2 annual shipments 1 to Europe and 1 to the US.

We would need to advise them with regards to Phyto certs, packing and shipping. I guess the operation their side needs a commercially savvy individual, not a well intentioned 'pastor'.

It would also be possible to develop a website based retail operation and there are arguments for this approach, which we could discuss.

Any thoughts?

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curriedrice

51st - that's a nice, well thought out proposal.It definitely helps getting past the impasse.

Thanks for posting!

buffy

Thanks 51st State for the thoughtful post. That's a start.

Here's the reality guys and girls, plant material like this isn't simply gonna start showing up. It takes people willing to try to solve problems. Regardless of whether you like Dr. Margraf's operation or not, unless we're all planning to jump on a plane and spend months convincing Chinese officials we're not stealing something, he's a guy in the right place. I'll do my part and work with him to understand how to create good value for both his interest and ours. Personally, I'm inclined towards conservationism. It's not much of a stretch for me to align with him.

As for his team's historical performance of getting plant material into customer's hands, the concensus is that they're abysmal. They have also shown absolutely no desire to humor the wants of the banana hobbyist, as many of you have experienced. It's easy to assume that they are either malicious, aloof or totally incompetent. Although any or all are a possibility, I'm inclined to think we're simply not seeing things from their perspective. Let me do some more homework with them and see where this leads.

Gabe15

Although I don't know all of the details in this case we are talking about, I do know it can be very difficult to get wild plant materials out of a country where they are native. This is a huge issue to the banana research community because many of the newly discovered species are not allowed to be moved outside of the country, with primary regards to moving them to the international genebank. As a result, many of the wild species are held at national collections or botanic gardens for conservation, which is a good start, but not useful outside of that country. There is a lot of work being done on working with the governments of countries with wild banana species to allow the plant material to be moved out of the country, not just for hobbyists, but for researchers. It is not so easy to just send plants out legally sometimes, so if it seems like there is some mal-intent with the people who have plants but can't send them to you, these legal issues could be a reason.

I started out as a hobbyist grower and continue to hobby grow bananas, I understand that many of us really want all of these interesting wild species, as I do too. However, in recent years I have been involved in banana research and work with many active banana scientists from all over the world. Something that I try to make light of on this forum is that there is a whole different side of bananas out there that hobbyists often do not interact with or are not aware of. This is the side of the banana research community who devote their careers to helping the hundreds of millions of people who depend on bananas each day for their livelihoods. Many of the issues we face as hobbyists are the same issues researchers face, so there is indeed active work to do things such as collect and distribute wild species and local landraces, or to breed for characteristics such as improved cold hardiness or disease resistance.

Its hard for me to find the exact words, but the main point Id like to make is that there are many people who are right this moment devoting their lives to these issues which the hobby community in general may see as great obstacles. I'm not saying hobbyists shouldn't help acquire new species (for example), I encourage everyone to do all they can, but while we're doing it to remember that at the end of the day, if we don't have a new species for our collection, its not that a big of a deal compared to the researchers who are working to get those same plants for breeding of genetic studies to improve bananas for those people who truly benefit and depend on them.

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51st state

I agree with all that

but feel that there is a disconnect between the scientific communiy and the hobbists. If we were to cooperate then things would move forward faster.

These days funding for projects in this research area are tight and by involving hobbists you could co-fund breeding programmes. As I said in an earlier post it is essential to the survival/development of some of the wild species/lesser cultivars that they have a commercial value. Why should a local farmer in West Bengal India, grow M. 'Dhussray', when he could grow a more disease resistant and faster growing/fruiting commercial form. In 20 years time it may be the case that no-one grows this landrace and any valuable genetic code/traits would be lost. The Indian govt. agency NCRB has in recent years carried out extensive collection of accessions but even they do not yet have them all.

Lets look at some of Markku Hakkinen's newly described species. Apart from them being identified,described and holotypes being deposited. What has been done to propagate and disseminate this material? I'll bet the world seed bank at Kew do not yet have genetic material and as yet I can as yet find no reference to it on the webpages of Bioversity International. By cooperation with someone like TianZi it should be possible to begin limited scale commercial propagation, benfitting not only hobbyists but local people.

It would be interesting to have communications with BI to explore ways in which the wider community can help as what we are proposing here chimes completely with BI's mission statement.

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Gabe15

In September when I met with all of the Bioversity International staff, including the genebank workers, I brought up the point that there is a fair amount of wild species available in the hobby trade and in botanic gardens that are not even in the genebank yet, and that there should be an effort to collect these relatively easy to acquire species, they were actually very curious about it and agreed to start contacting botanic gardens in Europe for wild species not yet in the genebank.

As for Markku (one of my great mentors and friend), he has worked very hard to save the species he has described, having many of them at the University of Helsinki Botanic Gardens where he works. He has also submitted most of the Chinese species to the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanic Garden, but again it can be very difficult to move them further than that legally, and in order for them to be useful to researchers or hobbyists in the future, they must be moved legally with the international genetic material transfer agreements.

As for something the hobbyist community can give back, if you own some rare or interesting banana plants, you can submit them to the ITC (the international genebank) where they will be preserved and available for free distribution to anyone who needs them. See Bioversity's website for more info.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

51st state

Please see below just sent to Bioversity...

Hi

Following on from an e mail thread on Bananas.org - International Banana Society , see TianZi Nature's Products - Exciting Possibilities It was suggested that there are a number of Musa species/cultivars which are available within the 'hobbyist' community but which it would appear do not yet have genetic material deposited in your germplasm collection.

What is the mechanism by which we can check whether or not material is stored and further, how do we submit material (plants)?

regards

Kevin O'Leary
Bananas.org - 51st state

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