On Feb 24, 9:03*am, "Pat Brennan" wrote:
Watch out for the Ag survey. *The orchid numbers are bogus. *AOS lobbied
very hard to get orchids as a line item, but never put in any effort to
clean up the numbers. *I think there was a lot of dick swinging to get the
highest orchid counts possible.

Who knows? The results of any survey, regardless of who did it, can
undoubtedly be debated endlessly. There are always questions about
survey design, analysis, purpose, &c. (ignoring questions of the
competence of those involved in conducting the survey)

*Every time an orchid changed hands it got
counted. *If an orchid passed through three 'growers' before it ended up
with a consumer it shows up in the survey as three plants sold and the value
added to the survey was the sum of the three sales.

So you would discount as irrelevant the economic activities of those
who specialize in breeding plants, those who are focussed on growing
plants from germination through to being blooming size, &c. I have
known people whose primary activity in the orchid business was
breeding, and others who did little more that buy flasks and grow the
plants out to their first bloom. And they made a profit doing so.
Are their activities to be discounted?

I have not looked as the Ag survey you described, so I can not comment
on how well it was designed or executed. I would be surprised,
though, if they either ignored such activities or confounded retail
sales with wholesale sales. In my view, one can not get a sense of
the size and health of the industry without both, just as one can't
understand the beef cattle industry without details on primary
production, feed lots, slaughter houses, &c. &c. &c.

*I feel the bogus Ag
survey orchid numbers are a major factor in the current world glut of
orchids. *The industry was just not as big as the Ag survey made it seem.

This seems contradictory. How can there be a glut of orchids and the
industry be smaller than it appears?

And in my experience, there may be a super abundance of some orchids,
like certain Phalaenopsis cultivars, but for many, plants are hard to
find. While I would be interested in buying specimens of the classic
cattleya species, I have never seen one. And while I found a very
nice reference for Huntleyas (with amazing pictures of many of the
species), I have never seen one in the flesh; neither a species nor a
hybrid using it. And I have seen very few specimens of Phalaenopsis
species even though there is an abundance of Phalaenopsis hybrids; so
much so that they're almost a dime a dozen.

Today the Ag survey is even more questionable. *It no longer covers all 50
states and I am not sure how many of the Phal arriving via boat are showing
up in the survey counts at all. *A better measure on the state of orchid
sales within the US would be to look at the number of plants being imported
into the US.

That would be a relatively weak, and potentially misleading,
indicator. I would expect, for example, the number of Phal imports to
decline as the domestic Phal breeding and cultivation gets healthier.
After all, why go to the expense of importing a Phal specimen, which
may arrive in a weakened state, if one can get the same kind of orchid
in excellent shape from a local grower. One of the species of
interest to me is P. schilleriana. Why would I import one from
Indonesia, or one of her neighbors, when I know there is a vendor in
Montreal that produces outstanding specimens of that species? When it
is time for me to get one, all I have to do is drive there (or wait
until they come to one of the shows in southern Ontario); and I don't
have to worry about crossing a national border.

If one really wants a sense of the state of an industry, one has to
measure every aspect of it, including imports, local production,
wholesale and retail sales, &c. Trying to get one measure is
troublesome at best. Most efforts at reducing a multivariate problem
to a univariate indicator are futile at best (despite claims made by
advocates of one 'index' or another).

But why worry? The current economic times are likely to shake out
some weaker players in the industry, but I doubt the industry is going
to disappear. Unless things get so desperate that no-one can afford
to put a roof over their head or food on the table, people are going
to want some ornamental plants to beautify their homes, and as long as
that is true, orchid businesses of some form will thrive in good times
and survive in tough times. And as long as we can find orchids
somewhere, and there are the kind folk who provide experience and
wisdom here in this forum, what is there to worry about? Do any of us
buy orchids, or try to learn about them, because there are lots of
people buying orchids? Not me. I buy them 'cause I like them, and I
study them 'cause they're interesting. I'd consider the Ag survey
numbers only if I was considering creating a new orchid based
business.

FTR: I would be advising caution in the use of any survey, regardless
of who designed, executed, and published it, because of my background
and experience with multivariate analysis of survey data in
biostatistics.

Cheers,

Ted