SRGC Seed Exchange 2024-2025

[Richard Green]

Seed Order picking is now in progress, and the first Donor's Main orders have been mailed out today Thursday 9th January - starting with UK members.  The remaining Donors' Main orders (both UK and Overseas) will follow over the next few days.

[Richard Green]

Here is the current position on mailing out of seed orders:
UK - have been mailed out over the past week, and the last UK orders (for non-donors) will be mailed tomorrow Thursday 16 January.
New Zealand - these were all mailed out today Wednesday 15 January.
USA - these will be mailed to your chosen USDA APHIS Inspection station on next Monday 20 January.
EU (incl. NI and Switzerland) and Australia - these seeds will now go for phytosanitary inspection before mailing to you in maybe two weeks.   
Rest of World (China, Canada, Norway etc) - these will be mailed tomorrow Thursday 16 January.
Members in EU and Australia should await further updates in due course about the progress of phytosanitary certification.

[Catwheazle]

Great :-) thx for the Update !
Can´t wait ..... :-)

Bernd

[Margaret Thorne]

Many thanks for the seeds sent to us for the Scottish Borders Rock Garden Group. They arrived this morning and will be greatly appreciated by our members at the next meeting. Congratulations to those involved in picking, packing and posting the seed so efficiently and to everyone who contributed to making this another highly successful seed exchange.

[ian mcdonald]

My seeds have arrived. Thanks for the hard work by the seed team.

[Catwheazle]

Quick question: are the seeds for us Europeans still being inspected?

Thx
Bernd

[Richard Green]

Seeds for EU and Australian members are currently being inspected by Scottish SASA Inspectors in Edinburgh.
I shall post further updates as soon as I know any more information.

[Catwheazle]

thank you very much and excuse the inconvenience

[Richard Green]

Phytosanitary Inspections of seeds for Australia and EU are complete, and seed boxes were collected last Friday 7 February, along with phytosanitary certificates, and mailed out to Australia and EU over last weekend.
EU seeds have now reached our helpers inside the 'EU' today, and orders will now be prepared with the hope of mailing them to other EU countries at the end of this week.
Australia seeds are in currently transit between Glasgow and London Heathrow.
Rest of World seeds are reaching their destinations and some have now arrived in Canada and New Zealand.

[Catwheazle]

Great :-) Thank you for the information!

[MarcR]

I received 1 package of 3 expected on Monday 2/10.  It is not unusual for packages mailed together to arrive separately.  They might arrive at APHIS together and depart several weeks apart. Small APHIS PPQ stations like Seattle [Seatac] have only 2 inspectors and commercial shipments are given priority. 

[Eric NY]

Hi all,
I have already recieved 2 of the 3 packages I expect. First one arrived on Friday 2/7/25 and the second on Monday 2/10/25. The package on 2/10/25 was held up on Thursday by APHIS in Jamaica NY. I had wrong spieces listed on taxa list. They asked for updated permit. I went online and added the correct species to the permit, it took less than a half hour to submit the update and recieve new permit. I forwarded the permit to the inspector at end of work day on Thursday about 2:30pm. The seed arrived on Monday.
They took about 2 weeks to arrive, which is greatly reduced from last year. Last year they arrived in early March.
Thanks for everybody involved in making the exchange a success. Especially, Marc for being the donation contact in the US.
Eric Duma

[Richard Green]

This is an update for our overseas members.  You will know that there are more and more problems each year with sending seed overseas.  Both Brexit and Phytosanitary certificate regulations have caused us some big problems.  Here is a summary by country or area:

European Union (including Switzerland and Northern Ireland, excluding Norway) - your seeds have been checked by the Scottish Government Seeds Inspectors in Edinburgh and they have provided Phytosanitary Certification to allow the seeds to be sent from the UK to your area/country. Unfortunately, this year it seems that allium seed is not allowed by the EU to be imported from UK into the EU, so sorry to those of you who ordered allium. These allium seeds have been removed from your orders, but it happened too late to add any replacement seeds.  The seed has left the UK and we have friendly members organised to ensure your seeds are delivered soon - so orders are being made up now. They should be mailed to you in the next two weeks.

Australia - the box of seeds for your orders has just reached Sydney (12 Feb). It may be inspected under Australian BICON rules, and should then be delivered shortly to our friendly member who is helping to ensure your seeds are separated and delivered correctly.  They will be distributed as soon as possible.

United States of America - your seeds were mailed to your chosen USDA APHIS Inspection Station three weeks ago. Unfortunately a number of envelopes were returned by the Royal Mail (in some cases twice). This was due to misunderstandings by the Post Office about Customs forms and other barcoded labels. These problems have now been resolved, and all envelopes mailed out, but some may be delayed this year.  It may explain the delays experienced by Eric and Marc (see previous posts).

Rest of World (including Canada, Norway, New Zealand etc) - your seeds were mailed three weeks ago, and we know that some have been delivered in Canada, China and New Zealand, so the rest should now be in your own country's postal system.

We hope this explains the position for your country, and that you can be patient for a little longer. Exporting seeds to you is now a big and major undertaking. Apologies for any delays which are now entirely out of our control.

[ashley]

... You will know that there are more and more problems each year with sending seed overseas. 

Sorry to hear that Richard. Your efforts, and those of the team, are greatly appreciated.

[fermi de Sousa]

Australia - the box of seeds for your orders has just reached Sydney (12 Feb). It may be inspected under Australian BICON rules, and should then be delivered shortly to our friendly member who is helping to ensure your seeds are separated and delivered correctly.  They will be distributed as soon as possible.

The friendly member informs me that the seeds have arrived!
We can distribute some of them at our AGS  Vic Group meeting next Saturday, saving a bit of postage!
cheers
fermi