Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum

Bulbs => Galanthus => Topic started by: Maggi Young on October 18, 2021, 05:11:55 PM

Title: Video: Snowdrops from Georgia - Caucasus wildflower trade
Post by: Maggi Young on October 18, 2021, 05:11:55 PM
This film report is only viewable in the  EU, I'm afraid, not UK.  It is available until 10.11.2021.

 My friend sharing the  link with me tells me that it shows that poor people in Georgia collect   every year millions of bulbs from G. woronowii ….and then they bring it with trucks to the Netherland …where the bulbs are  cleaned    and then  finally they sell it …for a much higher price !!!
The collectors buy  the bulbs and they kill it after one or two years …after this they need new plants  :o

I recognised the man on the first picture as Gerard Oud,  he speaks  some words … and also seen is  Loes de Groet, both of whom used to be seen frequently in the forum. 


https://www.zdf.de/arte/arte-re/page-video-artede-re-schneegloeckchen-aus-georgien---handel-mit-wildblumen-aus-dem-kaukasus-100.html
Title: Re: Video: Snowdrops from Georgia - Caucasus wildflower trade
Post by: Vinny 123 on October 18, 2021, 06:11:59 PM
Right click - select "copy post URL". Paste into your browser and the video plays (in German?).

Lots of information on the species and the trade available from CITES online.

This may work - https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/100300-087-A/re-schneegloeckchen-aus-georgien/

https://cites.org/sites/default/files/ndf_material/WG4-CS2-P.pdf
Title: Re: Video: Snowdrops from Georgia - Caucasus wildflower trade
Post by: Carolyn on October 18, 2021, 07:04:58 PM
Right click - select "copy post URL". Paste into your browser and the video plays (in German?).

Lots of information on the species and the trade available from CITES online.

This may work - https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/100300-087-A/re-schneegloeckchen-aus-georgien/

https://cites.org/sites/default/files/ndf_material/WG4-CS2-P.pdf

Vinny, your link worked fine for me, thanks. If you go to the top right of the page, you will see the letters DE and a drop down arrow. Click on this to select your language!
Title: Re: Video: Snowdrops from Georgia - Caucasus wildflower trade
Post by: Diane Whitehead on October 19, 2021, 05:34:42 PM

The collectors buy  the bulbs and they kill it after one or two years …after this they need new plants  :o


Why do the bulbs die?  Woronowii has thrived for decades in my garden.
Title: Re: Video: Snowdrops from Georgia - Caucasus wildflower trade
Post by: Vinny 123 on October 19, 2021, 06:22:02 PM
Partly assumption, I suspect.
That and, given that many part-time gardeners struggle with nivalis, a good many real failures due to inappropriate treatment.

Based on the video and CITES, woronowii ought to be spectacularly easy in a garden if minimal sense is applied - it is, or was not so long ago, an agricultural weed within its native range.
Title: Re: Video: Snowdrops from Georgia - Caucasus wildflower trade
Post by: Carolyn on October 19, 2021, 06:45:53 PM
Why do the bulbs die?  Woronowii has thrived for decades in my garden.

In the video it shows bulbs still with very green leaves being dug up, them the leaves are torn off and the bulbs places in huge sacks. This treatment surely won’t do them a lot of good. Then you have to wonder how long the bulbs are in those sacks…..
Title: Re: Video: Snowdrops from Georgia - Caucasus wildflower trade
Post by: arisaema on October 20, 2021, 07:48:56 AM
I believe the vast majority of Galanthus bulbs collected in the wild end up being used for producing galantamine, used as a drug against Alzheimer's and dementia, not for gardeners...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galantamine
Title: Re: Video: Snowdrops from Georgia - Caucasus wildflower trade
Post by: Vinny 123 on October 20, 2021, 08:09:05 AM
I believe the vast majority of Galanthus bulbs collected in the wild end up being used for producing galantamine, used as a drug against Alzheimer's and dementia, not for gardeners...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galantamine

Possible, but unlikely, especially if the bulbs are going in large numbers to NL.
Wikipedia states that galanthamine is produced from daffodil bulbs , but the yield is so incredibly low (0.1-0.2% on dry weight, so perhaps 0.01-0.02% on fresh weight) that syntheitic routes are used by large chemical companies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galantamine_total_synthesis

Lots of recent research done by Aberstwyth University, which implies that foliage is generally used - total world useage predicted at 40 tonnes per year - equivalent to around 2-400,000 tonnes of fresh daffodil material -

Search galanthamine here - https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/search/

https://pure.aber.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/integrating-narcissusderived-galanthamine-production-into-traditional-upland-farming-systems(10fb49fa-0b35-4ad7-af1d-f14c8870a8d1)/export.html
Title: Re: Video: Snowdrops from Georgia - Caucasus wildflower trade
Post by: arisaema on October 20, 2021, 08:26:31 AM
Possible, but unlikely, especially if the bulbs are going in large numbers to NL.

Yes, you are likely to be correct, I seem to remember reading years ago that the Turkish and Georgian CITES quotas were excused as being for collection for pharmaceuticals as much as for gardeners, but making the drug synthetically certainly makes sense with such a small yield...

Huge quantities of Lycoris bulbs are dug from the wild here in China, I wonder what they are used for... Colchicine perhaps? Dysosma are going extinct, that's for podophyllin as well as the chemotherapy derivates etoposide, teniposide, and etophos.
Title: Re: Video: Snowdrops from Georgia - Caucasus wildflower trade
Post by: Vinny 123 on October 20, 2021, 09:18:50 AM
Unless extraction facilities are very close to the harvest site, it would be preferable to ship dried material. If material was being dried before shipping, in the case of galanthamine extraction, the whole plant would be dried.

Lycoris extract, which includes galanthamine and lycorine, is being used in cancer treatment. There are many articles about this online, many of them with Chinese names on them, although I am unsure what you can access from your location - just one example - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10600-009-9404-0
Title: Re: Video: Snowdrops from Georgia - Caucasus wildflower trade
Post by: Mariette on October 20, 2021, 11:57:16 AM
Why do the bulbs die?  Woronowii has thrived for decades in my garden.
Most likely, Vinny is correct in regarding this as an assumption. Different species of galanthus have different requirements, and many customers know little about that. Galanthus woronowii thrives where enough moisture is provided like in its homeland, but its bulbs shrivel and die when stored too long and dry, similar to those of G. nivalis. As G. nivalis isn´t harvested equally cheaply in our part of the world, G. woronowii is often bought instead, not at least as it´s often labeled as G. nivalis. Also, G. woronowii is less hardy than G. nivalis.  After all, some customers buy snowdrops just for decoration and throw them away after flowering.
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