Procedure for importing tissue cultured bamboo plants into the US?

[Mark Meckes]

What is the procedure for importing tissue cultured bamboo plants into the US?

Is only a small quantity imported, which are then further tissue cultured in this country during the quarantine period for eventual commercial distribution?

Are they are imported en-masse in small vials, and then potted up, initially under quarantine conditions, before finally being released for commercial distribution?

Mark

[sasa fool]

There could have been changes that I am unaware of but I do not believe that there are any special allowances for importing tissue culture bamboo plants.

The law on the federal books still bans the importation of bamboo in all 'propagatable' forms including seeds (ebay seed sales from abroad are in violation of US law, but seemingly ignored) or culm cuttings. However, there are a handful of permits that allow for 'the importation of prohibited plants', such as the one I used in 2005.

The permit holders I know had attempted to bring in some bags of very clean bare rhizomes in a couple of boxes along with a box of bare rhizomes that had culms attached, the culms had been very painstakingly cleaned and pruned of all foliage but their were leaf buds left intentionally intact to increase the odds of a viable division. At the USDA inspection point, the inspectors found something they did not like at the branch junctions of the rhizomes with culms attached and they proceeded to confiscate ALL of the boxes and destroyed everything.

When I did my import as an agent of record on this same permit, I went totally with bare rhizomes only and everything made it through but many of the rhizomes did not have the energy to produce any culms so not every species made it into the US alive. My contact in Europe had cleaned most of the soil away from the rhizomes/roots a few weeks prior to my arrival and he replanted them in a sterile medium which very likely helped get the plants cleared. That is the advantage I see with the tissue culture plants, I believe that they have to follow the same protocols but are more likely to clear the inspection. FYI, I dipped all of my rhizomes in the HortaSorb polymer which was fine with USDA APHIS.

I look forward to see if anyone else has new information regarding your question here.

[Mark Meckes]

Here is some information/general references regarding this topic:

PLANT QUARANTINE - Plant Guidelines for Importation to Hawaii
http://www.hawaiiag.org/hdoa/pi_pq_plants.htm
Grass family (sugarcane, bamboo, and grass):
Plants and parts require permit and quarantine. Seeds and dried parts of bamboo and grass are unrestricted.

In this article from the Hawaii Island Journal:

Home-Grown Homes: Can Bamboo's Promise be Fulfilled?
http://hawaiiislandjournal.com/2003/1b03c.html

... it is mentioned ...
" that while imported bamboo plants must go through a one-year quarantine, tissue cultures do not."

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Here is a link to:
USDA - APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service)
Plant and Plant Product Permits
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/permits/index.shtml

And here is an excerpt of:
§*319.37-2 Prohibited articles (http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=64938ae67d906f1fc8ba68b478241a07&rgn=div8&view=text&node=7:5.1.1.1.6.7.49.3&idno=7)

Title 7: Agriculture
PART 319—FOREIGN QUARANTINE NOTICES
Subpart—Nursery Stock, Plants, Roots, Bulbs, Seeds, and Other Plant Products 1,2

e-CFR Data is current as of June 21, 2007

(a) The following listed articles from the designated countries and localities are prohibited articles and are prohibited from being imported or offered for entry into the United States except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section.

(Note: I've only listed the following "article" in this posting)

Prohibited article - Bambuseae (seeds, plants, and cuttings)
Foreign places from which prohibited - All
Plant pests existing in the places named and capable of being transported with the prohibited article - Various plant diseases, Including bamboo smut ( Ustilago shiraiana )

Paragraph (c)

(c) Any article listed as a prohibited article in paragraph (a) or (b) of this section may be imported or offered for entry into the United States if:

(1) Imported by the United States Department of Agriculture for experimental or scientific purposes;

(2) Imported at the Plant Germplasm Quarantine Center, Building 320, Beltsville Agricultural Research Center East, Beltsville, MD 20705 or at a port of entry designated by an asterisk in §319.37–14(b);

(3) Imported pursuant to a Departmental permit issued for such article and kept on file at the port of entry;

(4) Imported under conditions specified on the Departmental permit and found by the Deputy Administrator to be adequate to prevent the introduction into the United States of plant pests, i.e., conditions of treatment, processing, growing, shipment, disposal; and

(5) Imported with a Departmental tag or label securely attached to the outside of the container containing the article or securely attached to the article itself if not in a container, and with such tag or label bearing a Departmental permit number corresponding to the number of the Departmental permit issued for such article.

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See also the following article:

Quarantine Restrictions for Bamboo
http://www.americanbamboo.org/GeneralInfoPages/BambooQuarantine.html

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Comments
Though the above links and information provided does not provide any conclusive information regarding the importation of tissue cultured bamboo plants into the USA, the stipulations in paragraph (c) appears to provide some degree of flexibility on the importation of a "prohibited article".

Adding to this the fact that the APHIS is underfunded, with not enough staff to handle the workload of inspecting all plant materials coming into the USA, perhaps special considerations are being made on a case by case basis.

Also due to the fact that a great diversity of bamboo species is already available in the US (ie, no need to import these species), and there being only a small real demand for introducing new species, such as the elite clumping bamboo, the number of import requests are probably very minimal.

Still, the introduction of tissue cultured bamboo plants to the main stream (primarily horticultural) US market is a relatively new phenomenon, so it is possible that new import guidlines may surface as more businesses venture into the capitalizing of "trademarked" bamboo cultivars.

However I will culmjecture that even though European bamboo (tissue culture) growers appear to be ahead of US growers in marketing and the exporting of elite (clumping) bamboo species, these same bamboo species have or will also flower here in the US, and there probably are some very enterprising growers at this very moment trialing and selecting new generations of species cultivars for further propagation and introduction to the mass market under cultivar names.

Mark