The Tropical Fruit Forum

Guys , I am serious about this Borneo thing , I would probably combine it with visiting the ruins in Cambodia ( Angkor Wat....spelling ? ) The Rauch orchard in Malaysia , Botanical garden in Singapore and on the way back the plants market in Bangkok ( I need some Amherstia nobilis )

Still working on all this , planned for next winter season ( December 2014 - Januari 2015  ) I am very flexible . This would give me and those who want to go on an adventure one year to make the contacts and gather all the info we can .

No shopping malls or red light districts....lol.....only fruits and not limited to Durion..

I'll probably start a new post about this and would appreciate all the info / suggestions I can get .

People seriously interested in joining let me know .

Quote from: TREESNMORE on December 06, 2013, 02:10:51 PM

Marklee
 Is your yellow seedling 1 a Atemoya or Cherimoya.

Correction on the Vietnamese atemoya
: V.Doam and Mike I think Mark told me the yellow fruit is a cherimoya but not sure.

Quote from: marklee on December 06, 2013, 12:41:40 AM

I just started building a greenhouse, 20L x 8W x 10 tall slanting to 9 feet. I'm using treated 2x4's for the bottom frame and then using untreated for the rest and treating with a waterproof paint. I bought the polycarbonate sheets, 8 feet x 4 feet. I had to buy 38 of those which cost about $500, then I'll wrap the inside with the large bubble wrap. I did the same design at my other place and works fine. Here is a photo of the walls going up with me and my daughter. The bananas are going to have to be cut back a bit. The long end where we are standing is facing south.

I can't see the pictures here but it sounds like a good start.    Those polycarbonate panels like you get from harbor freight are pretty good. Double poly plus bubble wrap is about as good of insulation as you can get on glazing, athough it will have an affect on your light transmission. Just keep the water off those boards (whether treated, painted, etc - even treatment and paint have their limits) and any of your wiring / heating / lighting fixtures. And make sure you've got good venting. If I remember correctly, the rule of thumb is that if you're not using a fan for forced air venting, you should have 20% of your glazing open under full sun. You could probably get away with less if it's only a winter house, though.  Oh, and consider where the sun will be. You probably should consider having the north side heavily insulated rather than glazed, and painted white to reflect any light that misses the plants back at them. Sealing determines heat retention efficiency, but be careful if it gets too sealed when the vents are closed because polyethylene gas can build up from your plants which leads to deformed growth (some natural gas contaminants and combustion byproducts can as well if you use gas heating). If you want venting while minimizing heat loss, you can use a countercurrent heat exchanger, where outgoing air runs adjacent to incoming, heating it up. Make sure you have plenty of room and features for your own comfort - headspace, room to sit down and / or mess with your plants, etc - you don't want going out to your plants to become an unpleasant chore.  You should also have water running out to your greenhouse because carrying buckets gets tiring really fast! Wiring and water should be trenched and buried, below the frost line (thankfully, in CA that won't be very deep! People up north need to go a half meter or more) and deep enough that they won't be inadvertently exposed or damaged. Water should be in a pipe, not a hose, up to the greenhouse, and wiring in conduits, such that a wayward shovel or root doesn't damage them. Give your panels a bit of leeway, don't install them too tight or you'll have problems as your structure settles. Oh, and lastly, keep in mind structural loads, including under wind stress or if a board or two needs to be replaced, at all times (make sure it's well anchored against wind too!). And inspect your structure every so often to see if anything is weathering/rotting away.

Best of luck!

Mark, you can see my whole permit here Small Seed Lot Permit here. This is what yours should look like if you applied for the right one:
http://fruitlovers.com/SmallSeedLotPermit.pdf
BTW, I give this link to my suppliers, then they can print it out from overseas and easily include it in their package.

Quote from: plantlover13 on December 02, 2013, 07:41:54 PM

So you're on vacation in some fruit paradise. There, you find a variety of some fruit or something that you really love and want to bring back germplasm. However, you have no clue how to / lack the ability to get a phytosanitary certificate for the plant matter. What do you do?

essentially, if you don't know how to get a phyto for something in a foreign country, how do you do that, and if you can't what can you do to bring back the germplasm (legal options preferred  ). Is there a way or are you just screwed?

I think we went through all this before? You don't need a phytosanitary certificate to bring in seeds. Your small seed lot permit is sufficient. You apply for that before you go to another country and carry the permit with you. You need a phyto only for plants and plant parts (cuttings, airlayers). Difficulty of getting phyto depends on country you are going to visit, but for most short trips it's pretty much impossible, unless you have a local there do it for you.