Hi :) I'm from Vidin, Bulgaria, Southeastern Europe. Does anyone here still have some free seeds of anything succulent or whatever? :) I really like having exotic and very-strange-looking plants. Here's my address in any case... Borislav Levashki 94 Tsar Alexander II 3700 Vidin Bulgaria You could send me a post card if not... :)

There was to be a large get together of breeders, physiologists, infectious disease persons, certain hobby gardeners, etc. to determine which accessions should be deleted, but it never happened b'c they couldn't get money to even hold the meeting. I know b'c both Craig and I had been invited to be participants. Those meetings happened. I guess you missed the memo? Hopefully someone there didn't decide that 90% PLUS of your expertise limited to heirloom lore was of "no use" anymore to the germplasm committee. Their perspective doesn't seem to be "what do we delete" rather it has been what are the priorities based on the needs of those who use the collection. A survey was sent out to establish priorities. Since that time grant money has been available each year to grow out crops. Crops are grown out and evaluated with a cap of $15K-$18K per project under specific guidelines. These priorities and submissions for grant funding were published and are online in several places. Since this is the Tomato Forum I'll just say that most folks have no idea that maybe 90% PLUS of the accessions are outdated breeding lines of no use to anyone anymore. "Ill just say" I guess all that hard work from years of field tests or running around various parts of the world assembling wild species by real "experts" no longer serves your purposes but such a statement shows ignorance of the potential of what is in that collection and what potential it has even to home gardeners. I guess they lack the "colorful" backgrounds or blessings. How's about turning it around and saying 90% PLUS of what is in the SSE are outdated lines of no use to seed companies or scientists? As more DNA sequence data is added to places like SOLGenes and microarray technology costs come down, every line holds great potential for mapping new traits and marker assited selection, contributing to a better understanding of genetic interactions and using QTL (Quantitiative Trait Loci = traits which involve numbers of genes, like yield or flavor) for identifying and recombining traits even through traditional breeding methods. Such adavances will help gardeners as QTL's hold the potnetial for overcoming disease problems like early blight. Those kinds of things are a long way off from being done by likes of those without the right tools, knowledge and resources. Here is a link that might be useful: Link which may be helpful

I think a lot depends on cultivar, but it's definitely not a rarity for a seedling to fruit faster than a grafted tree. My seedling NS1, for example, fruited about 1 year earlier than my grafted black gold. I think a lot has to do with the fact that the seedling is much more vigorous and much more rapidly reaches sufficient trunk girth to be able to hold those giant fruits. As I see it, the advantages of a grafted jackfruit are: you get a 100% true to type fruit and you get a less vigorous and easier to maintain tree. There is definitely some variability among jackfruit seedlings (though maybe not as much as with other fruits such as the mango). My seedling NS1 grows like a wild beast where the grafted black gold is much, much more tame. Jeff

Hey everyone, I'm in the process of sprouting a new batch of Jackfruit seeds. I should end up with ~50 but I already have too many plants so I wanted to check if anybody is interested in them. Here are some pics from my last round of sprouting. I am at Colorado State University currently but I can ship them anywhere. I shipped some to my grandma in AZ 2 months ago and they're almost 2 feet tall now! Let me know if you're interested, Sam.