The Central America Effect

Make no bones about it. Central American imports are affecting every corner of the U.S. greenhouse industry, and American growers are concerned about it.

For the past 20 years, propagation companies have moved production overseas. Millions and millions of starter plants enter the United States every year from locales such as Costa Rica and Guatemala and the numbers are growing.

The implications are many. U.S. propagators, which can’t produce material as cost effectively, have had to alter what they grow and sell. Foreign pests, diseases and weeds have arrived on imported unrooted cuttings and bare-root liners, costing growers millions of dollars in control expenses and lost sales.

And American greenhouse growers are worried that the U.S. government will relax its quarantine regulations to start allowing plants to be imported in soil.

Greenhouse Management conducted an exclusive market research study on this topic in March. Almost 60 percent of growers surveyed showed moderate to major concern that Central American imports would compete for their business.

More than 90 percent expressed moderate to major concern about phytosanitary issues related to Central American imports.

Big issues
“As long as they don’t allow finished product in, I’m OK with it,” said Tom Petry, president of Paramont Greenhouse & Nursery in Norfolk, Va. “But as soon as they start letting in finished material in soil, we’re all in big trouble. The same thing will happen to us that happened to the U.S. cut flower industry.

“It vanished. All those cuts are now being produced somewhere else and shipped over here.”

Petry actually imports about 10,000 annual cuttings (geraniums and New Guinea impatiens) from a Paul Ecke Ranch facility in Guatemala.

Imported invaders
There are plenty of cases where pests, diseases and weeds have invaded the U.S. green industry on imports.

Flexuous bittercress is one of the most common cool-season weeds of container growers nationwide. It was introduced to the United States on European imports, said Joseph Neal, North Carolina State University weed scientist. Rorippa sylvestris and Inula britannica are major weeds for U.S. growers and they entered the country on astilbe, hosta and daylily transplants from Europe. For instance, I. britannica, came to the United States on bare-root hosta liners from the Netherlands.

In regard to diseases, daylily rust has become a major problem, particularly in the humid Southeast. The disease nearly decimated the entire daylily industry, as old favorite varieties proved highly susceptible to the foliar disease.

Breeders scrambled to identify selections that were rust resistant, but meanwhile millions of diseased daylilies were dumped nationwide.

While not confirmed specifically, there’s strong evidence the disease arrived in the United States on infected daylily liners from Costa Rica in 2000, said Jean Williams-Woodward, University of Georgia plant pathologist, who originally identified the disease.

There are even human health concerns with imports. In 2001, bare-root lucky bamboo plants were imported into California. They were infested with Asian tiger mosquitoes, a species known to carry diseases such as encephalitis and dengue fever. A massive search for these mosquitoes ensued and the insects were discovered in several neighborhoods around Los Angeles.

Ralstonia troubles
But nothing in the past decade compares to the Ralstonia outbreak that occurred in 2003. Geranium cuttings produced by Goldsmith Plants in Kenya were infected with the Ralstonia solanacearum race 3 biovar 2 virus. Growers across the country were quarantined during the spring selling season.

“I’m concerned that someday we’re going to have issues similar to what we went through with Ralstonia,” Petry said. “There were many growers and retailers that had to dump tens of millions of dollars in material – anything within 10 feet of a suspected plant.

“Plus there were locations quarantined right in the middle of spring and they couldn’t ship anything until a USDA inspector got there. In our business, every day is critical. We have a 45- to 60-day window. If you miss a day, you can’t make it up.”

Import benefits
But many growers benefit from Central American imports. The starter plants are inexpensive options, and the quality is usually good.

Malmborg’s Greenhouse in Rogers, Minn., has been importing annual cuttings from Central America for almost 20 years, said production manager Troy Lucht.

He currently imports about 4 million cuttings per year, accounting for more than 90 percent of his total starter material. These cuttings arrive from Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala and Brazil from sources such as Syngenta Flowers, Fides North America, GroLink and Florexpo.

“They’re better than anything we could grow here in Minnesota, and therefore cheaper, Lucht said. “We really can’t charge any more for our finished product, so we have to look for ways to lower the costs of our inputs.”

He’s seen no major pest or disease problems on the Central American product, and the quality is good.

“We actually see a lot more bugs on the products we ship up from Florida,” Lucht said.

He’s actually seen an uptick in quality in geranium cuttings since many major producers moved production facilities from the Canary Islands and China to Central America.

Likewise, Scott Titus, owner of Windy Meadow Nursery in Ferndale, Wash., can rely on quality cuttings coming from Central America.

“The quality is really good – probably better than some of the rooted liners we get locally,” Titus said.

He imports about 20,000 unrooted cuttings from Costa Rica.

In a strange twist of events, Titus is actually hoping to become an exporter shipping plant materials across the border into Canada.

“We’re five miles from Canada, and we’re looking into shipping our stock into the Vancouver area,” Titus said. “With the value of the Canadian dollar right now, it could be a lucrative venture for us. We’re working on getting the permits.

“Then it’s just a matter of convincing the [retail] nurseries from buying from me in the states. A lot of big players in the floriculture business in B.C. (British Columbia) have gone under in recent years, and our quality standards are somewhat better than their typical standards there.”

Keeping out foreign pests
Is the fear of relaxed U.S. plant import laws justified?

Not really, said Lin Schmale, Society of American Florists senior director of government relations.

“It’s not going to happen any time soon, if ever,” Schmale said. “The government has specifically moved to allow plant imports in soil in the past, and in every case there was an extensive pest risk assessment.

“This is very time consuming and there’s a waiting list that’s very long. It takes time to get the risk-assessment personnel where they need to be.”

The process includes scientists visiting a country that has petitioned to import certain plant species in soil. They evaluate the potential pests, diseases and weeds in a given country and evaluate their threats.

There are currently a handful of ornamental plants allowed into the United States in approved growing media. These include Christmas cactus from the Netherlands and Denmark and rhododendrons from Europe.

“In all these cases, there are strict production and sanitation protocols that include everything from greenhouse pest screening to how high the benches have to be, to their water-management systems, to worker sanitation,” Schmale said.

“But keep in mind that when you’re dealing with Central America you’re talking about tropical countries. Soils are the highest risk of a pathway for many pests and pathogens because they can hide in there. So I think it’s a real stretch that the U.S. would allow Central American imports in soil,” she said.

Resources
For information on the U.S. Quarantine 37, which regulates ornamental imports, go to www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/plants/plant_imports/Q37_protocols.shtml.

For information on protocols for imported ornamentals in soil, go to www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/plants/plant_imports/downloads/Q37-pigm.pdf.

For more: Society of American Florists, (800) 336-4743; www.safrnow.org.