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I was curious if anyone is selling Copiapoa Cinerea seeds? I am mostly looking for Colmna Alba but I am interested in all Cinereas. I want to support people on the site and grow my cinerea collection so I can pollinate my own seed in the years to come.

EliWhitney3140 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 4:38 am I was curious if anyone is selling Copiapoa Cinerea seeds? I am mostly looking for Colmna Alba but I am interested in all Cinereas. I want to support people on the site and grow my cinerea collection so I can pollinate my own seed in the years to come.

Here's a link - I have purchased from him before and I find the quality acceptable:
https://unusualseeds.net/product/copiap ... 0-seeds-4/

hmm, well if you'd want to order from Europe, as unsusual seeds is a Serbian company, there's a lot cheaper options of course.
ADBLPS has 5 column alba seeds for 1,2 €
And the Czech hobby club sellers usually have them even cheaper, though ordering can be a bit more complicated, and slow.
Cactus hobby Brno : 10 seeds for about 1,2 €
I guess Kaktus club Hradec Kralove has them as well, but only in some preiods of the year.
The quality of the seeds is usually quite good I think.

Thank you both for your reply.

Ebay has plenty in Ukraine "Fresh from Chile". ...they say....hmmmm....The underground cactus train is still rolling.

What is the underground cactus train Steve? Poaching? Is it illegal to harvest seed from copiapoa?

EliWhitney3140 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:55 pm What is the underground cactus train Steve? Poaching? Is it illegal to harvest seed from copiapoa?

... just funny to me that folks in the Ukraine would have "fresh from Chile" copiapoa cinerea seeds.

The "underground cactus train" is just my attempt at humor that there is even such a thing as cactus smuggling.

Gold, diamonds, counterfeit anything, children, body parts, rare animals, you name it...sure those items come to mind as something to smuggle. But spikey plants?

And no, I won't say the Ukrainians are actually smuggling copiapoa seeds to sell on ebay. But I wonder why the folks in Chile aren't selling them on the bay?

https://knightcenter.jrn.msu.edu/2019/0 ... al-riches/

I guess my big question is, is it unethical to take cactus seeds to grow large amounts of cacti? Are people depleting the local population by sewing in their homes? I would like to think that if more people were sewing seeds and flooded the market there would be less of a reason to poach actual plants.

Send a message to Jan Novak on Facebook.
There must be some in his seeds list

Thank you for the tip Fatich

EliWhitney3140 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 10, 2021 2:32 am I guess my big question is, is it unethical to take cactus seeds to grow large amounts of cacti?

I'm guessing that it would slowly undermine population stability and rob the localised areas genetic diversity, thus making them less flexible in the face of rapid environmental change. Seems unethical.

EliWhitney3140 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 10, 2021 2:32 am I guess my big question is, is it unethical to take cactus seeds to grow large amounts of cacti? Are people depleting the local population by sewing in their homes?

I've wondered about this too. Some seed, like saguaro is exclusively wild collected, but it doesn't really harm wild populations. I'm not sure otherwise though. A person gave a talk about conservation at my local club and I tried to ask him about it after the meeting but he got really weird about it and wouldn't answer my question. I wonder if this is just a taboo topic for some reason

that guy "fresh from chile" copiapoa man hes a complete utter scammer. sells poached seeds and not even the correct type. stay away from him. ( i didnt know what it meant when i bought it cuz i was very new to cactus)

I am not sure about seed collection or export from Chile, plants certainly need a CITES licence. Obviously all cactus seed is either covered by appendices I or II.

However there was this firm in Chile selling seeds, but don't know if their website is up to date. Presumably they exported as their prices were in US Dollars?

http://www.chileflora.com/Florachilena/ ... ae&B1=Find

http://www.chileflora.com/Florachilena/ ... G_START=12

http://www.chileflora.com/Florachilena/ ... G_START=24

Only a small proportion of the seed produced ever germinates in habitat. Controlled germination in cultivation often produces better germination. I suppose the question is does taking seed rather than plants damage the populations survival? Sometimes it can depend on how the seed is taken if a fruit is removed or a "pooter" used to "vacuum" loose seed off the plants crown maybe it is OK. However to save time and collect seed quickly and avoid being caught some seed collectors just chop the plant crown off complete with fruits. Unfortunately this is also sometimes done by the locals when they find there is a market selling seed to visiting cactus collectors. It is not just foreigners who will cash in on the market, the locals will too, but they only get a derisory amount for the seed or plants compared to those who buy from them.

One of the main problems with so called "illegal" collecting is when the locals find out their "weeds" have a value they just rip up all they can find and if nobody comes to buy them they are just left in a heap to rot. Whilst border authorities can control foreigners exporting the plants and seed abroad to a large extent they are virtually helpless to control the locals "harvesting" plants on what they consider is their land, after all most could legally plough in those plants for agriculture anyway. Therefore some of the stripped habitats are due to locals and not foreigners, even though the foreigners may create the demand by buying the plants. The problem is the authorities seem incapable of controlling their own population digging up endangered plants and in some S. American countries their goats are digging them up and eating them anyway. Therefore the problem is not as simplistic as CITES stopping international trade in such plants.

"Unlike in our previous story about succulent smuggling along North America's western coasts, poaching rings that operate in Mexico, South America, Madagascar and elsewhere aren't sending in foreigners to strip out plants. Instead, they get locals — often poor farmers or shepherds barely scraping a living from hard scrabble land on small ranches — to do their dirty work for them.

Poachers first go into the habitat, he explains, to survey the plants and photograph them. If they want any, they talk to the locals — many of whom are very poor — and offer them money to collect the plants. To the locals, Minnich points out, succulents such as species of Ariocarpus, Pelecephora or Aztekium have no more value than a tumbleweed might to a person living in the Southwestern U.S. "As soon as anyone offers money for them, some of the locals are often more than happy to collect plants and save them for the return of the people who offered to buy them," Minnich says.

"What happened with the Ariocarpus kotschoubeyanus f. elephantidens," he adds, "was that poachers who wanted these plants encouraged the locals to collect them, telling them they would come back and buy everything they dug up. As the cash-strapped famers in those areas would herd their goats, cattle and sheep, they would dig up every plant they saw and put them in their home. Then, when the foreigners returned, they paid the farmers for the plants."

In this case, according to Minnich, the locals most likely collected plants every day for months, eventually picking just about everything in the area: a total of roughly 10,000 plants. The poachers shipped these plants to Asia — Minnich believes it was Korea or China — where they supposedly sold them for $200,000. And how much did the poachers pay the farmers who collected the plants? "They may have made a few pesos per plant, or perhaps even more," he says. "For them to collect 100 plants and get many pesos for each? Well, from their perspective, that's fantastic! After all, they're only tumbleweeds to them!"

https://www.treehugger.com/why-black-ma ... ng-4863289

Dave I really appreciate your post. As a somewhat newer cactus grower I am always trying to become a little more aware of effects we all have on habitat. Thank you