César Wensel

Conservation of flora through selective breeding

Willian George Ward (1812-1882) says more or less as follows: at sea, when a strong wind rolls in, the pessimist believes that things will get worse, the optimist believes that the winds will turn in his favor, the realist adjusts the sail.
It is the 21st century and the alarm has sounded. Global warming threatens the earth with decimation. Millions starve and some say that every 30 seconds a child dies of hunger in Africa. I believe that if we do the calculations, there must be not many people left in this world. The truth, in my opinion, is that it is necessary for us to call attention to the damage that we have been inflicting on mother earth, which is screaming and fighting that we will run out of water, that the poles will melt etc. However, by producing orchids and oxygen for the past 52 years, we have been doing our part.
In laboratories around the world, more and more plants of higher quality are being produced for medicine, food, ornamentation etc. and there are constant efforts to inhibit the extraction of this or that flora's part. In our laboratory, during a long time we have made a selection of a few plants and we could even compare ourselves to plastic surgeons of orchids transforming not the ugly, but the beautiful into even greater beauty. We often face with purists that desire only plants that come directly from nature. However, awareness has been showing each day more that the extraction practice is economically unviable and surely with risks to the health. Who poaches plants from nature is committing a prosecutable crime.
The improvement of species is irreversible. Plants are becoming each day more beautiful, shinier and vigorous. This can certainly generate confusion for those that see a plant costing $250 at an orchid show and say: "there are many of those flowers on my property or on my farm". That is exactly when opportunistic people go after the place, often without authorization of the owner, and remove everything that they can find within range. It is silly to think that this will end. We have to adjust our sails.