Evil bonsai thoughts

[BillsBayou]

An intrusive thought that I need to share so that I can be reassured that this would be evil.

Let's say you've successfully propagated a variety of tree that could have commercial success in bonsai. You have isolated the mutation and can propagate it by seed. The mother tree is in a public space so sooner or later people will find your source tree and start growing their own. Monopolies are always best for as long as you can maintain them. But how to maintain a monopoly is the question. You could spend a decade running up your inventory before you debut your trees ...

Or an evil option: You kill the mother tree.

It's an obvious option, but it is so very wrong for so many reasons. Has anyone heard of someone doing this to a tree that is just too large to collect?

 

[eonxoy]

I don't think anyone would have thought to look for your source tree until you brought it up.

 

[caffeinated]

I think bonsai, or even rare garden tree collecting, is such a niche hobby, that no one would ever probably find your original tree. Mainly because no one is really looking for it. You'd probably be talking about an amazing cultivar of a tree right, since it's probably not an entirely new tree species. I've never looked to find any of my favorite cultivars of Japanese Maple around town, even though there are probably so many shishigashiras and katsuras, etc. planted around my neighborhood, given how many our local nurseries sell. I'm not sure you'd ever get very far with a monopoly on a specific cultivar, since there will undoubtedly be something similar that shows up.

The hard part of bonsai isn't access to great cultivars anyway, right, it's what you do after you get it.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Or you make sure you flood the market.
Everyone can own a chicken for the price of an US egg carton. Not a lot of people want to go through the effort of raising it and caring for it.

I think the same is true for plants. I can get junipers from a store, even though seed is cheaper. Save me 5 years of growing by offering cuttings for 15 euros and I'm sold.

 

[leatherback]

that could have commercial success in bonsai

I doubt commercial success in bonsai is such a commercial success it warrants kiulling a parent plant. If it is easily propagated a person just buys a plant from you and starts propagating. You do not need the motherplant for that. Real commercial viability means that you can go a legal route to protect. but with plants.. I can walk past a bush, take a few cuttings and propagate without the owener of the propagation rights ever knowing, and, in fact, without me knowing it is protected.

Swamp the market early on and establish yourself as the origin.

I have a japanese maple variety that can be great for bonsai. Three people have clones in the garden so that I do not kill the whole strain by a single accident. I am not concerned this will affect my position as source of this, while I wait for my stocking to grow and see whether the traits carry across multiple generations of cloning, before registering it..

 

[Glaucus]

Having commercial success in bonsai will probably be harder than killing a thousand trees. Unless you do pottery.
This is a really odd post.

The genetics will also matter way less than you think. What about marketing, producing a quality product, availability, customer service, etc.

 

[Snorlax99]

"Monsanto has entered the chat"

 

[rockm]

I dont' think there's going to be soooo much demand that such measures would be considered. If you discovered it on public property, it's not yours to begin with. It's a bit of good fortune, but you preventing others from benefitting from the same thing is a toddler's way of dealing with things.

 

[Cadillactaste]

Killing a mother tree...to a species that, is under used. I wonder after all the years in bonsai why that is. ... clearly it's not the only specimen on earth.

Then...I fall back on. Put the special brownies away. You clearly ate one to many.

 

[just.wing.it]

I don't think that's a bonsai thought. It seems more like a $$$ thought.

 

[Joe Dupre']

Just propagate a ton of cuttings and start selling them. Make money while you can. Being the only source of a special plant is likened to being the best clarinet player in Poughkeepsie, NY. Cool, but not earth shattering.

 

[Davidlpf]

It is not evil, simply selfish, maybe you should come back to primary school, and learn some basic principles of citizenship.

 

[DeepSouth]

Just be the first to the market and establish yourself as the dominant player. Bonsai is too niche, it would be a lot of work for someone to go find that tree and try to replicate the propagation setup that you would have already built.

 

[Michael P]

Do what corporate nurseries do: patent the cultivar, give it a trademarked name, then claim that 'Bill's Spawn of the Swamp' is the one true magic bonsai tree and sue anyone who says differently or tries to propagate it.

Modern marketing is evil, but not as evil as killing the original specimen of a genetically unique and desirable plant. "The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture." --Thomas Jefferson.

 

[Glaucus]

You wouldn't patent the cultivar. You would just register the trademark. The name, not the genetics of the plant. This protects your marketing.
Besides that, nowadays to protect the plant itself, the genetics, there are 'plant breeder rights', which you can obtain after the plant has been officially evaluated under a certain number of criteria.
You pay for this evaluation. Which is cheaper than a patent.
Theoretically, you can still patent a plant cultivar. But the above methods are considered to be superior or more practical.

 

[shohin_branches]

Some things should remain inside thoughts

 

[crab apple]

 

[Gabler]

Firstly, unless you tell someone where you obtained the genetics for your tree, I doubt anyone would figure it out. Secondly, killing the mother tree would not stop someone from buying one of your clones and taking cuttings. Thirdly, that's why there are plant patents. You can patent a new clonal cultivar of a plant. The patent is good for twenty years—plenty of time to earn a profit. Just fill out the paperwork and pay the filing fee at the U.S. Patent Office.