Thanks all for the sound advise,i know there is no way of competing with the
phal market.Its a good job i am no good at growing them or want to grow
them.Me and my society friend are doing it together and will be mainly
concentrating on species.So maybe i should have asked is there money in
selling species?I don`t want or expect to make big profits i would just love
to make what i am in my present job.As i would have to obviously pay the
bills which i have now .I know the grass is greener on the other side and
turning your hobby into a serious venture will take away alot of the
pleasure i get now,but i am willing to take a risk as i always lean to the
cautious side.I am 32 and a gas engineer and cannot bare the thought of
doing my job until i am 65! Hopefully we will gradually get going and in
time be able to work part time allowing time for the orchids,then maybe one
day pull in enough money to do it full time.Maybe i watch to many programs
on the tv about people changing there jobs/lives for the good and me wishing
i had the same courage to do something i enjoy,instead of the ritual of
mundane life lots of us lead.I am always jealous when i watch these
shows,maybe i should stop watching them i here you say but they are so
interesting and prove if you are serious and put your life and soul into
something anything is possible!I know there is no way of making a quick buck
and know if i am serious it will be a long hard slog!
Cheers Keith

"al" wrote in message news:1HP_g.1133$GJ.685@trnddc07...
I had a Chinese gentleman in here who wanted me to show him how to
pollinate an orchid and to explain how flasking was done. I told him the
internet had lots of pages devoted to this and he told me his English was
not very good. (It was not very good, no.) Anyway I asked him what
language he spoke and he said Mandarin, so I told him there had to be LOTS
of sites in Mandarin that explained how to flask orchids because orchids
are flooding out of China like oil is flooding in but he said that 'they'
consider this information to be proprietary so it is NOT easy to find it on
websites in china. I thought this was odd and have no way to know if it
is true or not.

Mick, I am about ready to freak out and write a whole book on your ass.

"Mick Fournier" wrote in message
...
Keith,

Al will always be MY barometer. On the day he only writes one sentence
to answer a simple question... then I will know he finally freaked out in
total and we are all in deep spores. So far, it looks like we are all
fairly safe for today.

If you want my assessment on whether there is "still" real money in
orchids then my simple answer is "no". The Asians will own this
industry completely with their throw-away mass-produced hybrids in
another two years. But to doublecheck let's find an old Venezuelan,
Hawaiian or Columbian orchid grower and ask them where the overall market
is headed.

Mick