Also here's a pic of the Maloys relaxing among their creations

{{gwi:509556}}

OMG! (oh my god)... enough said!

Thanks Jaga. Quite a set-up. Those "some white ones" are awesome.

What are the tables made from? Clean looking setup.

Wow, that's the biggest collection of foliage Vrieseas I've ever seen in one place (including Shiigi's and Arden's)!

Jaga - What an amazing collection - thanks so much for sharing it with us. All the best, Nev

Yes HDD , To get good air flow around the plants they use galvanised steel grates on concrete blocks alternatively like most of us here we have found using upturned polystyrene used 'fruit' boxes are very good. great for insulating the plants from the ground and keeps good ventilation.
Heres a image showing many thousands of young plants waiting to be potted up, trays upon trays!! a lot of work ahead there!! Andrew says from pollination to a saleable plant takes on average 4 years, pretty good turn around for Vrieseas.

{{gwi:509557}}

It looked like broccoli boxes from the photo.. good idea

Wow! Thanks for the behind the scenes look. That is quite the operation. Are the Maloys retired from some other business?

Four years to a saleable plant, but how long to build up enough stock to sell? I imagine some of those hybrids are years upon years in the making, amazing! Too bad they're not available over here. They make it seem impossible to make a shabby looking hybrid.

Mike they will be available...dunno how soon but they are coming

Ditto on the WOW factor, John and Agatha! THANKS!!

Nice pics of Agatha there as well, and John's locks :)
I enjoyed meeting Rhonda and Andrew Maloy in Cairns, at the WBC 08.

Just yesterday, the three tissue-cultured Kiwi vrieseas (Cream, Dusk and Sunset) were publicly released here in Oz - at a large brom show in Brisbane. As suspected, they were/are very popular! My brom mate and I were second in the waiting line to get into the show, after a 3 hour drive to get there. It opened at 8am. 'Twas a sociable 'who's who' of the Aussie brom world, after the initial frenzied stampede that is! Got home again last night...sooooo tired!

I have heard rumours of more tissue-cultured Maloy hybrids in process for us Aussies.
HDD - are the ones coming to U.S. also tissue-cultured?

Cheers,
Kerry

Oops - Andrew's locks, not John's.

K

Kerry, So after all that did you get the 3 'Kiwi's'?? and dare I ask did you need to rob the bank?

HDD, yes we are all using the Poly boxes here, can also be broken into little bits in the bottom of the pots for more insulation. The boxes are just discarded here ending up on landfills where they will never rot away so we reckon we could be due 'carbon credits' I bet the same thing happens in Aust & Usa.

Mike, The Maloy's operated from another property before running out of space. They also collected a lot of seed and plants from others as it was once easy to import plants into NZ so there has been good stocks here for some time. Yes its a full time business. Its easy to cross the plants to get the seed, its after that the hard work starts.

Can anyone give a brief run down on how tissue culture works? I imagine that you give x mature plants to the "factory" and they give back y containers with the cultures and then you do what?

You grow the little guys out to maturity. They are the size of regular seedlings when they are sold to growers

Here's a brief overview from one lab:

Here is a link that might be useful: tissue culture

Hi John,

How lucky are you to be invited to the Vriesea paradise. It makes me drool with such a colourful and stunning Vriesea.

John and Agatha - Yes, I bought one of each of the 3 Kiwi vrieseas. They were selling at the show for (AUD)$60 each - quite reasonable considering the time and expense spent by the group who imported them. They are approx. 30 x 30cm, and very healthy. There were many other broms for sale at the show as well.

K

Please add another WOW!! - they are glorious, Jaga. Thanks for sharing.

John and Agatha,
This is a timely post! Our local bromeliad society is focusing on foliage Vrieseas at our meeting this coming Saturday. Part of the meeting will be a Power Point presentation with lots of plant pics. Do you have any objections to copying some of the above photos to include in our presentation? The production photos would be particularly enlightening, as we have no facilities that would compare within 1000 miles!
A few of our members have acquired a decent representation of Shigii and Arden hybrids. We can only hope that the Maloy's hybrids will eventually reach the USA as well. (hdd- what do you know that you're not telling us?!) The hybridizing program that they have in place in NZ is nothing short of remarkable! Thanks for posting some wonderful photos.

Paul

Hi all ,
Thanks for all the above comments. Great to see so much interest. Vriesea's have long been our favourites, especially after seeing Andrew and Rhonda's magical hybrids. Which I guess you can all tell by our past posts. We always thought we could collect them all but in recent years have had to be very selective and judging from what we have peaked at there are many more good plants to come so will need to 'rob a bank'.

Paul, Thanks for asking. Have sent you a email.