The Tropical Fruit Forum
Tropical Fruit => Tropical Fruit Discussion => Topic started by: mikesid on June 04, 2012, 01:32:43 PM
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I am planning a trip later this year to Peru. One of the guys I work with has a house in Punta Rocas near Punta Hermosa about 25 minutes south of Lima. I am looking for any books that might shed some light on the fruits of this area. Has anybody here gone there and can you recommend any fruits. I will be trying to acquire some seeds. International law doesn't prohibit seeds...right? I have heard of aguaje and lucuma and I know they grow cherimoya there...Any first hand info on this country besides what I can google would be great!
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Lost Crops of Incas is the book you want to read. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=030904264X (http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=030904264X)
Here is a list of some other fruits from Peru;
Fruits;
Ice cream bean (Inga edulis)
Naranjilla (Solanum quitoense)
Tamarillo (Cyphomandra betaceae)
Poha Berry (Physalis peruviana)
Babaco (Vasconcellea × heilbornii; syn. Carica pentagona)
Pepino Melon (Solanum muricatum)
Sanky fruit (Corryocactus brevistylus)
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Get the book Amazon River Fruits. It has excellent pics and descriptions of some of the fruits in Peru.
Make sure to get your USDA seed permits in order before you travel.
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Mike, all the coastal zone (west from the Andes) is desert! Anything growing is irrigated with water comming from the mountains. So there is not much growing (except of huge commercial plantations for export in the northern part of the country) not much to see for a fruit enthusiast.
I would recommend you:
1. Check out the big markets in Lima, specially the biggest market for fruits in Callao. There you will find fruits from all over the country.
2. East of the Andes is what? YES, the Amazon Basin! Plane rides only take one our from Lima either to Iquitos or to Pucallpa, adn are not expensive. I would rather go to Iquitos. There you can find a lot of cool fruits that most people don't know about, some of them very tasty: Pouteria sp, Matisia sp, Garcinia sp, Inga sp... and others that even locals don't know what it is.
Interandean subtropical valleys should be also very interesting, but that would take veeeery long raod trips and biodiversity shouldn't be as high as in the Amazon. BTW, the fruits listed in this book are nothing to rave about IMO, but many Inga species, which I love :)
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I am planning a trip later this year to Peru. One of the guys I work with has a house in Punta Rocas near Punta Hermosa about 25 minutes south of Lima. I am looking for any books that might shed some light on the fruits of this area. Has anybody here gone there and can you recommend any fruits. I will be trying to acquire some seeds. International law doesn't prohibit seeds...right? I have heard of aguaje and lucuma and I know they grow cherimoya there...Any first hand info on this country besides what I can google would be great!
All advice others have given you is quite good. I would just like to add that the permit you need to get is called a Small Seed Lot permit. You can apply for it online if you go to the APHIS website of USDA. The best book exclusively about Peruvian fruits is Frutas del Peru, by Antonio Brack Egg. Don't know if you can read Spanish? If you can might be best to buy it on arrival as it's hard to get in USA.
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I am planning a trip later this year to Peru. One of the guys I work with has a house in Punta Rocas near Punta Hermosa about 25 minutes south of Lima. I am looking for any books that might shed some light on the fruits of this area. Has anybody here gone there and can you recommend any fruits. I will be trying to acquire some seeds. International law doesn't prohibit seeds...right? I have heard of aguaje and lucuma and I know they grow cherimoya there...Any first hand info on this country besides what I can google would be great!
All advice others have given you is quite good. I would just like to add that the permit you need to get is called a Small Seed Lot permit. You can apply for it online if you go to the APHIS website of USDA. The best book exclusively about Peruvian fruits is Frutas del Peru, by Antonio Brack Egg. Don't know if you can read Spanish? If you can might be best to buy it on arrival as it's hard to get in USA.
I was looking at the USDA permit website. It seems you must fill out taxonomy before you go. What if I find a fruit unknown to me. Can I still bring the seeds back without any trouble?
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Get the book Amazon River Fruits. It has excellent pics and descriptions of some of the fruits in Peru.
Make sure to get your USDA seed permits in order before you travel.
HAHA
or just eat up as much as you can, and find the first domestic toilet u can.
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If you can, locate the sacred lucuma, that grows in the low lands...the incas worship gold, and this lucuma has a gold color...it can be grown at lower elevations, and should be suitable for FL.
I think its called Lucuma de seda.
here is a link...get me some seeds or scions now!
good luck...i don't think lucuma seeds are good to pass through your system! LOL better get permits.
http://www.ocfruit.com/files/LUCUMA.htm (http://www.ocfruit.com/files/LUCUMA.htm)
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What's the policy on carrying food on the plane with you for consumption purposes - is entry of said food banned? Food that might perchance, you know, happen to have some seeds in it?
I've planted leftovers before.. ;)
I guess it depends on what the policy on coming with fruit from Peru is. As for the declarations, fill out every plant in the book that you might have interest in to cover your bases. At least when importing seeds to Iceland, I've had on multiple occasions not had all of the seeds that I listed due to various delays or mixups in acquisition. Nobody cares if you bring *less* than you declare (at least not here, and I'd doubt in the US as well).
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On a side note, Travelzoo had an announcement yesterday, deeply discounted fare from Los Angeles to Lima Peru for $289, round trip. Its a steal!
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I was looking at the USDA permit website. It seems you must fill out taxonomy before you go. What if I find a fruit unknown to me. Can I still bring the seeds back without any trouble?
I always just write "All eligible taxa" on my permit application. No need to worry about what species beforehand. If you have any questions about applying for the permit just email or message me and I'll see if I can help.
I should really make an FAQ post about how to apply for the USDA Small Lot of Seed permit. Anyone feel like doing it for me?
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Haus would it be relatively easy for someone in Florida to obtain a live plant permit? Would it allow them to bring in small marotted plants or grafted plants without too much fuss?
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I was looking at the USDA permit website. It seems you must fill out taxonomy before you go. What if I find a fruit unknown to me. Can I still bring the seeds back without any trouble?
I always just write "All eligible taxa" on my permit application. No need to worry about what species beforehand. If you have any questions about applying for the permit just email or message me and I'll see if I can help.
I should really make an FAQ post about how to apply for the USDA Small Lot of Seed permit. Anyone feel like doing it for me?
Yes Sheehan is right, just write "all permitted species". Also in entering port write all available ports, that way if you want to have something mailed in the future and it comes a different route it is not a problem.
The FAQ idea is good. Just don't ask me to do it. ;)
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What's the policy on carrying food on the plane with you for consumption purposes - is entry of said food banned? Food that might perchance, you know, happen to have some seeds in it?
I've planted leftovers before.. ;)
I guess it depends on what the policy on coming with fruit from Peru is. As for the declarations, fill out every plant in the book that you might have interest in to cover your bases. At least when importing seeds to Iceland, I've had on multiple occasions not had all of the seeds that I listed due to various delays or mixups in acquisition. Nobody cares if you bring *less* than you declare (at least not here, and I'd doubt in the US as well).
The policy is you're not allowed to bring fresh fruits into USA from other countries without treatment. Dried fruit, canned fruit, jarred fruit should be ok. I suppose you might be able to get some seeds through in the dried fruit category.
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Haus would it be relatively easy for someone in Florida to obtain a live plant permit? Would it allow them to bring in small marotted plants or grafted plants without too much fuss?
Bringing plants is a whole lot more complicated than bringing seeds. You would need to get a phytosanitary certificate in Peru, then the plants would probably have to be quarantined upon entry into USA.
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This weekend I read in an old (1999) issue of Acta Hort. about a cherimoya diversity study in Loja province in southern Ecuador, bordering Peru. The tree literally grows as a forest in the area and it is considered the center of cherimoya diversity due to the wide variety of microclimates found there. If you can get to nearby northern Peru, you might find some interesting local cultivars. :)
Proc. 1st Int. Symp. on Cherimoya
Eds. V. & P. Van Damme, X. Scheldeman
Acta Hort. 497, ISHS 1999
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Yeah, second that, fruitlovers. I've shipped live tropicals internationally and it was a huge pain. In the future, I plan only to do either seeds or to order from others who are willing to do all the legwork ;)
Seeds were easy, except that they were coming by ship and Eimskip kept stalling about giving me the shipment information I needed for the application. :Þ
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Haus would it be relatively easy for someone in Florida to obtain a live plant permit? Would it allow them to bring in small marotted plants or grafted plants without too much fuss?
Some plants are much easier to bring in than others. Many trees require a two year post entry quarantine period but there are some species that do not require it and the only real requirement is as Oscar said a phyto and/or a permit. You can bring the trees in with only a phyto if you are bringing it in yourself with you on the plane. You are allowed up to 12 articles and they will have to be declared and inspected. If you plan to mail the trees, you will need a permit which also requires the phyto. It may be easier to find out which species do not require a PEQ and just bring a few of them with you on the plane trip back.
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Also consider the practicalities of shipping plants on a plane, especially ones of non-trivial size, on an international flight. You have to count on them being "in transit" for a day or so, because you have to pack them in advance of your flight (and since this takes time to do right and you won't want to miss an international flight, at least several hours before, best the night before). If it's like coming from the US to Iceland, they'll have to be soilless, so you'll be coddling the roots quite a bit trying to make sure it's a gentle transition. You may tell yourself that you'll plan to just put them in a sterile potting mix in your suitcase but when it comes down to practicality, in most cases, you'll find that just wrapping well in damp paper towels / cloth / etc and then protecting with plastic is best. You're going to have to find luggage that fits them, difficult with trees. I modified a box for tube lights to fit the plane specs without going oversize (although I did have one bag go overweight). Even if you go oversize, you have to know that there are limitations on what they'll allow period even if you pay the extra fee. Trees that are too tall, you'll just have to prune or, as in the case of my mango and cherimoya, carefully bend (their tallest branches are still deformed, lol... it became permanent). If you're taking a number of plants, you're going to have to pack them in tightly. Expect some leaf damage from all of the sliding and squishing (might want to try to protect your leaves better than I did mine). You'll want to consider that it's cold at altitude, potentially even below freezing, and decide whether you want to just chance that or to take precautions. Insulating a box full of plants isn't as easy as it sounds. The best you'll probably be able to do is stuffing clothes into gaps, although you may decide that stuffing more plants into those gaps is a better plan ;) I used heat packs (and tons of them) to keep up the temperature, but therein lies another problem: heat packs don't last that long. So instead of following the instructions and removing the center part (a package of iron powder which rusts when exposed to air to release heat) from its oxygen-blocking plastic wrapper, I had success with simply making small pinpricks in the wrapper to let the O2 in slower - less heat but over a longer period. When you get home, remember that it'll take time, not insigificant, not just to get your bags, leave the airport, and get home, but also to unpack each plant and repot it. Hopefully you'll be more prepared for the repotting than I was when I arrived. :Þ. Oh, and of course, hope your bags don't get lost or damaged! And then, settle in for the time it takes for your plants to reestablish themselves and heal. 4 months later my passionfruit still has some really ugly damaged leaves from the transport. They bug me, but they're still green and contributing to the plant's health, so I don't want to remove them.
And that's just about the transporting of the plants, let alone getting them approved for export/import!
Yeah, it's a pain to transport live plants with you internationally.
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With all the import and shipping hassles with rooted plants, your best bet seems to be bringing in seeds and/or budwood cuts. That keeps transportation small and simple. Start your stock plants now and check on budwood permitting into the US.
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I'll note that at least for export to Iceland, I had to get permitting for budwood cuts as well. But at least they're easier to transport.
Note that there's two sides to approval on anything, but especially with any living plants/plant parts: export and import. With export, they're mainly concerned about CITES. With import, they're concerned about CITES also, but especially disease, pests, etc. And don't expect the approval process to run so smoothly. Mine was a tidal wave of ups and downs.
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live plant on airplane will probably not make it given the cargo area is not conditioned and temps there drop to below 50 degree centigerate at 30,000 plus elevation. by sea is ok.
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I few years ago I took plants from Peru to Europe, which I had previously bare rooted. After all the trouble, they arrived alive, but later they all died. After this and other experiences, I would rather take seeds. The chances of of success are higher breeding healthy plants back home then transporting the plants and keeping them alive. And it is less work!
If you find slected and high quality named cultivars, you can take budwood to graft them back home. But let me tell you that Peru is not the country where you will find a lot of named cultivars. Most trees are seedlings and there have not been great efford and money for breeding programs. I visited research stations in the Amazon and also the University in Lima (La Molina). All I took back was seedlings. :-\
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The policy is you're not allowed to bring fresh fruits into USA from other countries without treatment. Dried fruit, canned fruit, jarred fruit should be ok. I suppose you might be able to get some seeds through in the dried fruit category.
That gave me an idea. Find someone in the country with a canning machine and can the fresh fruit or just the seeds without heat treatment, it should look like a regular can. Stick on a label from some other canned fruit. If they scan it it just looks like canned fruit. Then it should be ok to bring back, no questions asked.
As for the legality of it.... ;)
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Also consider the practicalities of shipping plants on a plane, especially ones of non-trivial size, on an international flight. You have to count on them being "in transit" for a day or so, because you have to pack them in advance of your flight (and since this takes time to do right and you won't want to miss an international flight, at least several hours before, best the night before). If it's like coming from the US to Iceland, they'll have to be soilless, so you'll be coddling the roots quite a bit trying to make sure it's a gentle transition. You may tell yourself that you'll plan to just put them in a sterile potting mix in your suitcase but when it comes down to practicality, in most cases, you'll find that just wrapping well in damp paper towels / cloth / etc and then protecting with plastic is best. You're going to have to find luggage that fits them, difficult with trees. I modified a box for tube lights to fit the plane specs without going oversize (although I did have one bag go overweight). Even if you go oversize, you have to know that there are limitations on what they'll allow period even if you pay the extra fee. Trees that are too tall, you'll just have to prune or, as in the case of my mango and cherimoya, carefully bend (their tallest branches are still deformed, lol... it became permanent). If you're taking a number of plants, you're going to have to pack them in tightly. Expect some leaf damage from all of the sliding and squishing (might want to try to protect your leaves better than I did mine). You'll want to consider that it's cold at altitude, potentially even below freezing, and decide whether you want to just chance that or to take precautions. Insulating a box full of plants isn't as easy as it sounds. The best you'll probably be able to do is stuffing clothes into gaps, although you may decide that stuffing more plants into those gaps is a better plan ;) I used heat packs (and tons of them) to keep up the temperature, but therein lies another problem: heat packs don't last that long. So instead of following the instructions and removing the center part (a package of iron powder which rusts when exposed to air to release heat) from its oxygen-blocking plastic wrapper, I had success with simply making small pinpricks in the wrapper to let the O2 in slower - less heat but over a longer period. When you get home, remember that it'll take time, not insigificant, not just to get your bags, leave the airport, and get home, but also to unpack each plant and repot it. Hopefully you'll be more prepared for the repotting than I was when I arrived. :Þ. Oh, and of course, hope your bags don't get lost or damaged! And then, settle in for the time it takes for your plants to reestablish themselves and heal. 4 months later my passionfruit still has some really ugly damaged leaves from the transport. They bug me, but they're still green and contributing to the plant's health, so I don't want to remove them.
And that's just about the transporting of the plants, let alone getting them approved for export/import!
Yeah, it's a pain to transport live plants with you internationally.
I think carrying plants internationally is realistically speaking out of the realm of most hobbyists. There is even a lot more hassles involved than Karen alludes to. There are so many hundreds of details that can go wrong or that you don't normally think about. For example, on one trip i failed to account for my early arrival time into Miami airport. My plane arrived at 4 AM, my connecting flight onwards was at 6 AM. Agriculture department is only open for inspection between 8:30 - 4 Monday to Friday, so if you arrive at different times or days than that you will either have to overnight it, or have to arrange for them send the plants on to you. A lot of international flights arrive at strange times and are only once a day. I ended up missing my connecting flight just so that Border Patrol could inform me that they cannot do the inspection. I had to arrange for another flight and arrange for USDA to send the plants to me, which took another extra week and a lot of extra expense and hassles! USDA will not take care of your materials. It either sits on a shelf or they put it in the fridge. Quite often they end up killing it.
If you really want to get plants from another country the easiest is to arrange for a reputable nursery to ship them to you. First though make sure that the plants you want don't already exist inside your own country. If a nursery in your country already has them that is the best and safest route. If not order from a nursery that will ship and has lots of experience shipping internationally. This might sound expensive and like a hassle, but is really quite easy and cheap compared to costs of a missed flight!
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live plant on airplane will probably not make it given the cargo area is not conditioned and temps there drop to below 50 degree centigerate at 30,000 plus elevation. by sea is ok.
Probably depends on the carrier, but with most this is not true. I sent lots of airmail packages to test this theory. All the packages had a special device that tracked the temperatures and could later be downloaded. The temperatures never dropped dangerously low up in the air. The more problematic times are once on the ground. If you ship in winter or summer the temperatures can go to the extremes while the package is being stored, or even carried inside of a truck.
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Ah, fruitlovers, good to hear from someone who is personally aware of the pain that is shipping plants internationally ;)
Jason: Heh, it's not hard to bypass customs regulations or work through loopholes. Heck, here in Iceland all they ever seem to care about is alcohol, people bringing it in trying to avoid taxes. It almost made me mad, after all the pain and expense I went through to get my permits (including becoming certified as a grower under USDA supervision), that I showed up at the airport in Keflavík with my nice shiny certified forms from all respective parties, and all the guy was concerned about was whether I was bringing wine, and if so, how much. Didn't even ask to open my suitcases to make sure that the plants I was bringing were on the list. I could have had my bags packed with 100 different endangered species infested with every plant disease known to man being used as travel snacks for a swarm of Japanese beetles, and nobody would have known the difference. :Þ
behlgarden, Filipe: It can be done; I did it. The only plants I list were two fairly mundane ones (lemon verbena and stevia) and a plumeria cutting which I think was already a goner (the people I got it from didn't preserve it right and it had a rot spot on it already). And I brought them to Iceland, in February at that! But there's no question that it's really hard on the plants. I don't plan to do it again. Maybe planting an occasional leftover, mind you, but... ;) I've lost a lot more plants to plantsitters over the years than in transporting plants. This is one place where you outdoor growers are so lucky, that your watering requirements aren't so strict. I still miss my silver-hair tea, my pair of kiwifruits, etc... almost lost my jabo, too. It was within an inch of its life with only three tiny half-browned leaves as its only source of energy for something like a month before it managed to get enough energy together to start producing more. And it amazes me, no matter who I bring in to water (except my last plantsitter, who is awesome), the post-mortem conversation always goes like... "Wait, you really didn't notice anything was wrong? Really? You didn't notice that every plant in the room had drooping leaves, some turning brown, some falling off, some plants now bare? You REALLY didn't notice that?"
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Ah, fruitlovers, good to hear from someone who is personally aware of the pain that is shipping plants internationally ;)
Jason: Heh, it's not hard to bypass customs regulations or work through loopholes. Heck, here in Iceland all they ever seem to care about is alcohol, people bringing it in trying to avoid taxes. It almost made me mad, after all the pain and expense I went through to get my permits (including becoming certified as a grower under USDA supervision), that I showed up at the airport in Keflavík with my nice shiny certified forms from all respective parties, and all the guy was concerned about was whether I was bringing wine, and if so, how much. Didn't even ask to open my suitcases to make sure that the plants I was bringing were on the list. I could have had my bags packed with 100 different endangered species infested with every plant disease known to man being used as travel snacks for a swarm of Japanese beetles, and nobody would have known the difference. :Þ
behlgarden, Filipe: It can be done; I did it. The only plants I list were two fairly mundane ones (lemon verbena and stevia) and a plumeria cutting which I think was already a goner (the people I got it from didn't preserve it right and it had a rot spot on it already). And I brought them to Iceland, in February at that! But there's no question that it's really hard on the plants. I don't plan to do it again. Maybe planting an occasional leftover, mind you, but... ;)
Karen, one of the unpredictable variables is the employee who happens to inspect your suitcases when you arrive. This can vary from not bothering to even open them to one that looks at everything with a magnifying lens! Now with heightened security in airports even your whole body will be scanned. They can actually see those seeds you stuffed into your pockets or sewn into your clothes seams! ;)
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Indeed, but the scanners are looking for weapons. I've never heard of anyone being asked to present papers on what they're bringing at the security checkpoint. Maybe it happens sometimes, but...
Now, if you do stupid stuff, I've heard of people getting caught. I read about one guy who was trying to smuggle endangered birds. He had them bundled up and taped, each one fit inside a piece of a paper towel roll tube, all of the tube segments wrapped around his body under his clothes. I'm sure he thought he was so clever, but A) can you think of anything that would look *more* suspicious to a security screener, and B) I don't think even the best liar could pass that one off as an accident ;)
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Hi Karen, the way it is now at USA airports is if the transportation security employees can hassle you about anything at all they will! If they see anything suspicious in your pockets or under your clothes you will definitely go to the special line where you have to take everything out of the your pockets and get the full pat down. If they really want to also the infamous: cavity search. :o This includes not just airports inside USA but also any flight at any airport that is headed to USA.
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Smuggling plants is a no brainer ;) I do it all the time!!!
I won't post my methods...might get in trouble ::)
Airports have people that are paid to ''read'' body language...If you are jumping like a rabbit you will get caught. ;) Be calm at all times...you are not bringing explosives. it's just plants ;D ;D ;D
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Hehe, like I said before, just have something innocent that you can pass it off as. Back when I wasn't sure I'd be able to get my permits at all, I was coming up with all kinds of crazy ways to get the plants in, like turning them into wreaths or parrot toys or furniture etc while still alive... even did tests to see how extreme of conditions they could survive ;) Heck, I probably could have passed my passionfruit off as a wreath even when it was coming in as legit, as I had to reel it in a whole bunch and bind it up, and the root bundle wasn't visible through all the leaf mass.