North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[list@ginda.us]

On Jan 13, 2005, at 10:34 AM, Jwlehman@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 1/13/2005 7:05:42 AM US Eastern Standard Time, loneroc@mwt.net writes:
>
>
> I found a really nice Meyer lemon ('improved'=virus free)in a two gallon pot
>  at Wal-Mart for about 10 bucks last fall.  I don't know how they can make
>  money at that price.  I guess that's why Sam Walton was a gazillionaire and
>  I'm about breaking even.
>
>
>
>  The lemon may have been only a seedling of Meyer, saving grafting handling costs. Just dropped the seed in the pot and let it grow and sell. I'm told it is perfectly legal to sell seedlings named as the seed parent.
> . . .


I don't know what it's legal to call what, but I do know that Walmart and its ilk sell massive quantities of very cheap plants that they grew through tissue culture.  Tissue culture is expensive if you want a couple thousand plants, but if you want hundreds of thousands of plants, it's much cheaper than grafting or other propagation methods.  

I'm sure everyone has noticed that very nice orchids are now available quite reasonably.  I understand that's because they were hard to propagate until tissue culture methods were tried.

(My "improved Meyers Lemon" was propagated by Monrovia, and is visibly a grafted plant.)

Ginda Fisher