The Seeds Look Good

Happy Easter,
I hope everyone is doing well. The seeds we received from Mexico look good, there was very little pest damage. The Schmidt Lab is in the pre-planting phase right now. We are going to lay down the plastic for our early field on Tuesday 4/14 so that the parents of next years PV crop won’t become inundated with weeds. Thanks to everyone in the group for being such fun, wonderful people. I learned a lot in my week down in Bucerias and had a great time as well. The mutant tours were very impressive. Sarah’s knotted mutants gave me a real appreciation for the effect of background on mutant phenotype. Knotted plants in some backgrounds looked like melting candles while those in other backgrounds exhibited only slight knotting. Guri also had some very interesting plants that had originated from the same population and been selected for over ~15 generations based on stalk strength. Over the course of five or so years Guri had selfed those plants with the weakest stalks , and selfed those with the strongest stalks. After ~15 generation the differences between the two lineages was stark. The weak stalks could be easily crushed by the grip of a hand while the strong stalks could be used by the authorities in Singapore to deal with shoplifters and vandals. Thanks again to everyone, I hope to see all of you again in Nayarit, 2010. Special thanks to Torbert for being the master organizer (you have a gift man!!).
Happy planting,
Craig Gaines

Pics from Puerto Vallarta '09

Hi All!

Torbert has been after me for a while now to get pictures from PV uploaded to this blog! Here they are...finally! It was good seeing many of you again at the Maize Genetics Meeting. Hope you are all doing well! -Kristin

Receiving seed from Puerto Vallarta, Shipping Next Fall

Hello My Mexico Maize Colleagues,

Next Step is we will need to send a scanned pdfs to Jan with PV Winter Services as a group.

For this one first year, I would like to have my secretary Angela Dillworth at adillwor@purdue.edu help coordinate this, so please send your scanned import permit to her now, or when you get it, and then she can send them all down at once.

Also, send Angela your formal shipping address for the seed to be sent. I will have Jerry Chandler work with Angela to give her the row assignments that go to each location. In this way Jan will get one major memo with rows, import permits, shipping instructions from all of us at once.

For next year, in order for each of to be able to have the flexibility to ship your own corn, in the same way I did the last two years, in the cargo section of a Continental Airlines commercial jet, we will need to send your shipping address to ProAgLogistics, and then they will file it with th KSMS database of the Transportation Security Administration and either you are okayed if your building or institution is a"known shipper" or if not then they will file some forms for you. Angela will compile and send them.

In order to ship to Puerto Vallarta next fall yourself, you will need to have your field inspected in late July or early to mid August by APHIS so that you can ship seed to Mexico. This is important.

Coordinating Import Permits

Jane, we are sending them to my secretary Angela Dilworth at adillwor@purdue.edu, and she will send them all down together. Also please send her your mailing address. I will post more on this and related topics soon. Torbert

Permit received - now what?

I received my permit for import. If anyone else is still trying to walk through the online process, I'd be happy to help navigate. There were a number of ambiguous parts, but apparently I navigated alright and received approval. I think it took about a week from the time I submitted.


Torbert -- Are you wanting to coordinate communications of the permit numbers (or hard copies, or electronic copies) to Cruz, or should we forward a copy directly to Jan in his business office?

Missing PV... Caio,

Jane

FILLING OUT IMPORT PERMIT

Use Form 587

Please list that the seed will be ''shipped''.

I just talked to Cruz, the seed is considered "shipped", whether you use what I have been using, a broker in US and in Mexico and it goes on a commercial airliner, or if you are able to use the relatively new UPS service that Cruz is now using since last year, particularly with Dow. More info on that closer to shipping time.

I will use this blog as much as possible, as last fall I answered the same question separately from different people a number of times, and in more than one case I got the same question more than once from the same person. So I hope to just post things once here, in general.

This blogsite will be revised or website developed, to make more user friendly (for the blog-impaired) and all the information will be posted, so you do not need to wade through old emails to find information, or send me an email to ask for it again. This will be a useful resource to new participants, as there will be more, Ed tells me they are coming next year for sure. Cheers, Torbert

Getting Import Permit to Receive Maize from Mexico

We wish to have all the harvested ears of seed sent directly to each lab. (All ears will be put in the pollinating bag for everyone to keep things consistent). In order for this to happen you need:

1) To have a current import permit for maize from Mexico (they are good for about 3 years), or
2) Have a colleague in the same department, building, or nearby building or location that has a current import permit and the seed can be sent to this person, or
3) Get the form from link below and get your own import permit

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/permits/plantproducts.shtml

Please do this now, as I do not wish to ship seed to people, and it is better to get it directly

The name of the person at the bottom of the import permit Martin Bohn got is

Marc Phillips USDA – APHIS 4700 River Road Riverdale, MD 20737

So this is a potential contact person if you have questions.

Subsequently, I will send information on how you can become a known registered shipper of corn seed to Mexico. Since the seed goes in the cargo section of commercial airliners, they are careful on developing identity of known shippers. This took about six months for the University of Illinois to become a known shipper. So after I get more information, you all will need to proceed on this to be ready for the fall.

Also, there were costs for phytosanitary insepctions and approvals, and shipping the corn to Mexico that I covered. I will adjust for this by increasing your row numbers up slightly and decreasing my row numbers down slightly in the final billing from Cruz; this will be approx 10 dollars a row I estimate, about.

Torbert