Mule Palms of Mississippi - dud Butyagrus seeds?

[UK_Palms]

So I'm just wondering about other people's experiences when buying from this company? Specifically any reviews of their Butyagrus seeds that they have been selling in recent years...?

Someone in the UK brought a batch about 2 years ago and I was able to source some of them from him via Ebay about 20 months ago now. I paid £36 / £48 for 8 of those seeds from him plus UK postage. I think he had ordered 100 seeds for about $250 and had to pay about $40 postage to get them to the UK. Some of those he was able to sell on to other collectors like myself.

Well fast-forward almost 2 years now and I haven't had any of my 8 seeds germinate and I haven't heard about any germinating from the other guy's seed batch. I also know there is a member in Spain @Peachs who has purchased 50 seeds from them for 192 Euros / $205 around the same time and he has not had a single one germinate either in 2 years now. So there is a definite red flag there and a common theme of European buyers being sent 'dud' seeds at least. Whether or not others in the States have also had this issue...?

Has anyone else got any experience with dealing with this company and specifically purchases of their seeds, as it does seem we may have been sold 'dud' seeds that were not viable. If they were cheap, then like 'whatever'. But the two other buyers who I mentioned have clearly paid enormous prices to ship dud seeds across the Atlantic. It's not really good enough, is it!? 🤬

[UK_Palms]

I have just got confirmation from yet another buyer who did not have a single seed germinate out of a batch of 50 Butyagrus seeds that were purchased around the same time in late 2022. However this person is in Wisconsin in the USA, which tells me that Mule Palms of Mississippi have produced a batch of dud seeds in general and sent them out to various people in various places, not just a few folk in Europe. However people in Europe have also spent $40-50 on shipping as well, which makes it an even more bitter pill to swallow. 🤬

 

Mule Palms of Mississippi suggests a germination rate of 60-70% for their Mule seeds, however it is 0% with all 4 people that I have spoken to, plus my own 0% success rate on top of that. So that's 0% success rate for 5 of us. I wonder if there will be any acknowledgement or responsibility from the company for this dodgy seed batch, given the prices involved...? Probably not. But it does seem this is a much wider-scale issue than first thought now. Potentially their entire 2022 batch of Mule seeds were duds and they probably made thousands $$$ off the back of these bogus seeds... 🤔

I would not order any seeds from this company period, until they can clarify or explain themselves i.e. admit to the dodgy seed batch from 2022 and confirm that subsequent seed batches are actually viable after being properly tested. Until then, don't even bother and save your money! 🙄

[UK_Palms]

Now up to 8 people that I have spoke to who received Butyagrus seeds from the 2022 batch and had 0% germination. I am yet to hear of a single person who even got one seed to germinate as it stands. Some of these people not only spent hundreds of dollars, but they have also spent the best part of 2 years trying various methods to get these seeds to germinate and have consequently wasted their time as they clearly aren't viable.

This is completely unacceptable. I have a hard time believing that Mule Palms of Mississippi weren't aware of this at the time of selling these seeds, since they grow Mules from the seeds themselves (to sell on) and would have tried germinating seeds from that same batch. They must have noticed that nothing was germinating at all, or that the success/viable rate was exceptionally low, if not 0%. Or they didn't bother to test any of them and just flogged them out to customers to make money ASAP, which is equally unacceptable and unprofessional. Either way they have a lot to answer for.

 

If Vic Silver can't get something to germinate, nobody can. He is on the IPS and highly respected in the UK and European community and a master at growing palms from seed, so the fact he is one of the ones who had no success really speaks volumes. Those 2022 Butyagrus seeds all seem to be duds and that is that. 🤬

I would contact the supplier myself, but I technically didn't source the seeds direct and thus have no order number. However the multiple people who did, who spent hundreds of dollars importing them into Europe for us, and those in the States too, should be due a refund and an apology. Again, Mule Palms of Mississippi will be well aware of this issue with their 'dud' seeds. They can't not be aware at this point.

I am curious to see just how many other people may have been screwed over with these seeds from 2022/2023...? And I will certainly warn some of the others who I know are looking to get hold of Mules in general...

@Bigfish @Mattpalm28 @Dwarf Fan @Ben G. @Foxpalms @Scott W @ChicagoPalma @gurugu @Swolte @Little Tex @VA Jeff @SeanK @OC2Texaspalmlvr @RJ @Xenon @Axel Amsterdam @Xerarch @Chester B

[Ben G.]

1 hour ago, UK_Palms said:

Now up to 8 people that I have spoke to who received Butyagrus seeds from the 2022 batch and had 0% germination. I am yet to hear of a single person who even got one seed to germinate as it stands. Some of these people not only spent hundreds of dollars, but they have also spent the best part of 2 years trying various methods to get these seeds to germinate and have consequently wasted their time as they clearly aren't viable.

This is completely unacceptable. I have a hard time believing that Mule Palms of Mississippi weren't aware of this at the time of selling these seeds, since they grow Mules from the seeds themselves (to sell on) and would have tried germinating seeds from that same batch. They must have noticed that nothing was germinating at all, or that the success/viable rate was exceptionally low, if not 0%. Or they didn't bother to test any of them and just flogged them out to customers to make money ASAP, which is equally unacceptable and unprofessional. Either way they have a lot to answer for.

 

If Vic Silver can't get something to germinate, nobody can. He is on the IPS and highly respected in the UK and European community and a master at growing palms from seed, so the fact he is one of the ones who had no success really speaks volumes. Those 2022 Butyagrus seeds all seem to be duds and that is that. 🤬

I would contact the supplier myself, but I technically didn't source the seeds direct and thus have no order number. However the multiple people who did, who spent hundreds of dollars importing them into Europe for us, and those in the States too, should be due a refund and an apology. Again, Mule Palms of Mississippi will be well aware of this issue with their 'dud' seeds. They can't not be aware at this point.

I am curious to see just how many other people may have been screwed over with these seeds from 2022/2023...? And I will certainly warn some of the others who I know are looking to get hold of Mules in general...

@Bigfish @Mattpalm28 @Dwarf Fan @Ben G. @Foxpalms @Scott W @ChicagoPalma @gurugu @Swolte @Little Tex @VA Jeff @SeanK @OC2Texaspalmlvr @RJ @Xenon @Axel Amsterdam @Xerarch @Chester B

I have some mule seeds that I am trying to germinate currently, but they didn't come from the same source as yours. I have had mine in a baggie on a heating mat for about 5 weeks now. 

I haven't seen any sign of germination yet, but I think they normally take several months.

[UK_Palms]

5 minutes ago, Ben G. said:

I have some mule seeds that I am trying to germinate currently, but they didn't come from the same source as yours. I have had mine in a baggie on a heating mat for about 5 weeks now. 

I haven't seen any sign of germination yet, but I think they normally take several months.

Yes, I have heard they typically take about 4-6 months to germinate. However a bunch of us have been waiting 18-24 months now for any to germinate from the 2022 batch from Mule Palms of Mississippi. None have germinated for any of the people I have communicated with. They are all duds by the looks of things. The latest it should take is 9-12 months to germinate. Not 24+ months.

Worrying, they were selling x 1,000 of these seeds on their website for $1500 back in 2022/23. The fact they are listed as ‘sold out’ too suggests that someone, or multiple people, may have brought $1500 worth of these seeds back then. Heaven forbid they were all duds as well. Imagine that.

I am glad I didn’t go direct now as I would have been paying even more than I did. I lost about £40 / $52 obtaining a small number (8) of the imported batch from someone in the UK. If I went direct, it would have cost me at least £60 / $77 including shipping for like 10-20 seeds, and if I got 100 seeds like some people, I would have lost about £300 / $387. Never mind the £1,160 / $1,500 they were charging for 1,000 seeds.

The more I look into it, the worse it gets. 🙄

[SeanK]

I wonder if these seeds are from the F1 generation and therefore sterile.

[UK_Palms]

37 minutes ago, SeanK said:

I wonder if these seeds are from the F1 generation and therefore sterile.

There would be no F2 or F3 generations with Butyagrus as mature specimens are sterile and do not produce seeds. So the only way to obtain Butyagrus seed is by pollenating a female Butia with pollen from a male Syagrus and collecting the resulting F1 seed.

That F1 should then be viable and sprout a Butyagrus seedling, but the resulting palm is going to be sterile and unable to proceed to F2 and so forth. Each time you want to get Butyagrus seeds, you have to hack a Butia and Syagrus to collect the F1 generation to use.

Providing the hybrid cross was done correctly and worked, and the seeds are fresh and not old, I don't see any other reason why the F1 seeds would not be at least be partially viable. You should expect to see a 50-60% germination rate, or at bare minimum 25%.

For that 2022 seed batch to have a 0% germination rate, it has to mean the seeds were old, or the endosperm was dead inside or something. Maybe the hack just failed that year. Or they straight up collected F2 seed from an older Butyagrus that was clearly not viable. However given their company name and supposed area of expertise, they should know this already.

Either way they have cost people a lot of time and money, whether intentionally or not.

[SeanK]

6 hours ago, UK_Palms said:

There would be no F2 or F3 generations with Butyagrus as mature specimens are sterile and do not produce seeds. So the only way to obtain Butyagrus seed is by pollenating a female Butia with pollen from a male Syagrus and collecting the resulting F1 seed.

That F1 should then be viable and sprout a Butyagrus seedling, but the resulting palm is going to be sterile and unable to proceed to F2 and so forth. Each time you want to get Butyagrus seeds, you have to hack a Butia and Syagrus to collect the F1 generation to use.

Providing the hybrid cross was done correctly and worked, and the seeds are fresh and not old, I don't see any other reason why the F1 seeds would not be at least be partially viable. You should expect to see a 50-60% germination rate, or at bare minimum 25%.

For that 2022 seed batch to have a 0% germination rate, it has to mean the seeds were old, or the endosperm was dead inside or something. Maybe the hack just failed that year. Or they straight up collected F2 seed from an older Butyagrus that was clearly not viable. However given their company name and supposed area of expertise, they should know this already.

Either way they have cost people a lot of time and money, whether intentionally or not.

So, In this case I should say, "Perhaps they collected F2 seed from the F1 parent"

[UK_Palms]

1 hour ago, SeanK said:

So, In this case I should say, "Perhaps they collected F2 seed from the F1 parent"

Yes, this is what I am wondering. Butyagrus will technically produce seeds (which would be F2) but none of them would be viable due to it being sterile. I have seen people post photos of mature Butyagrus with lots of seeds hanging off, but I have never heard of anyone actually being able to germinate one.

However I have also heard of people back crossing the Butyagrus with say a Butia or Syagrus, so it would be Butyagrus x Butia, or Butyagrus x Syagrus. The resulting cross has a slim chance of producing a small amount of viable seeds, but even then it wouldn’t be true Butyagrus. It would be 75% Butia or 75% Syagrus, depending on how the cross was made. And I suspect a lot of the resulting seeds would be duds. Like 80-90% duds.

Looking at their wording below, I suspect they tried to do it this way in 2022, by back crossing a Butyagrus / Mule with another Syagrus Litoralis (which would produce a 75% Syagrus ‘Mule’ and not a true 50:50 Butyagrus). However the resulting seed batch turned out to be duds. That is the obvious risk when trying to work with an F2 generation from a supposedly sterile palm. Anyway this is just my theory as to what has happened.

How they have failed to adequately test the resulting seeds before sending them out and charging sky high prices is another thing entirely. Assuming they didn’t intentionally flog the dud seeds to keep the money pouring in. They claimed to have 16 years of experience back in 2022 (now 18 years) so they have a lot to answer for regarding this screw up. 🤔

[Chester B]

I know that generally MPOM has had positive reviews but that was people buying palms not seeds. They may not even be aware of the issues with their seeds. It’s worth contacting them first to see their response to people’s concerns. 

[Bigfish]

Wow, 0% is pretty low!  I suggest cutting into some seeds with some handheld pruners, or whatever you want to use to cut them in half.  If they are “stones”, they will be solid all the way through.  Even when making F1 hybrid Butiagrus, this can happen frequently.  The breeder has a responsibility to cut through at least the first few seeds to check for endosperm AND embryo, at least if he/she is selling seeds.  I cut through the first 3-5 seeds, and if I find endosperm and embryo in them, I quit cutting and call it a good batch.  Some stones will still get through, even after a visual inspection of the seeds.  The trained eye can spot stones, but it isn’t always 100% accurate.  If I have a batch where there are a bunch of very small, skinny seeds, those get cut open first.  If the first few are stones, I don’t waste my time bothering with the rest of the small ones.  They all get chucked in the “do not sell” bag.  Sometimes I will just sow them all anyway, in the case that I accidentally threw a good one in the bag.  After separating the obvious bad ones from the batch, a few of the rest of them get cut too to check.  If they look good, I quit cutting.

This is one reason why F1 Butiagrus seeds are not offered very often.  What I have learned is that you really need to do some very intensive quality control.  I have visually inspected thousands of seeds by hand.  Depending on the palm, sometimes the bad ones are very obvious.  If all 3 eyes are sunken in, there’s a very good chance that it’s a dud.  There should be at least one eye that has a little bulge next to it, indicating an embryo and endosperm present.  But even then, sometimes you run into a hollow seed.  

I’m not making excuses for that company…it looks and sounds to me like they just didn’t do much, if any, quality control.  I’m sure they would be offering F1 seeds though…can’t imagine they would be picking F2 seeds from a Butiagrus and selling them without cutting the seeds and checking them.  No way they would do that, imho, and I don’t know them at all.  
 

By the way, several people in the UK have ordered my seeds from last year (and this year also), and a couple of them have had at least some germination (I don’t know what percentage).  Vic is one of them.  
 

Guess which seed in the picture is a stone?

[UK_Palms]

14 hours ago, Chester B said:

I know that generally MPOM has had positive reviews but that was people buying palms not seeds. They may not even be aware of the issues with their seeds. It’s worth contacting them first to see their response to people’s concerns. 

I would contact them myself, but I did not source my seeds directly from them due to the shipping costs involved. So I cannot quote an order number or properly discuss a transaction. Someone else in the UK purchased a large batch and sold some on, so ideally they need to reach out to the company. But it seems people in the States have also purchased large numbers of dud seeds from them as well.

I am aware that a few members on here have received good, healthy palms from this company. I am not questioning their ability to supply palms in any way. I am only questioning their methods of obtaining Butyagrus seeds, their quality control/testing of said seeds, and the lack of diligence when sending out thousands of unviable seeds for hefty sums of money. As a result, I am encouraging those who purchased large batches (100+) to reach out to the company in hope of a refund.

At the bare minimum there needs to be an acknowledgment of the issue by MPOM and an apology given the scale of this issue. They will definitely be aware of the issue (since they germinate and grow on the seeds themselves) so I would have expected them to reach out and apologise themselves to customers who brought large batches, or offer replacements, or a refund, or something. Anyway I will try to message them myself.

For the sake of transparency, I would like them to be up front and give an explanation as to why the seed hack may have failed, for whatever reason. Otherwise it’s hard to trust them moving forward when it comes to seeds, without knowing what processes are being used exactly. As I said, I highly suspect it was a failed back cross using male Butyagrus pollen on a Syagrus, which produced a batch of unviable seeds. If so, I highly doubt they would admit to that, since it would also result in a 75% Queen dominant ‘Mule’ as well, which is less cold-hardy. Either way they need to clarify things.

[Mattpalm28]

Myself and another guy went half and got 50 seeds each 2 years ago. We also both had 0% germination rate. Not good concedering how much we paid for the seeds and postage! 

[Scott W]

I have never ordered seeds or plants from MPOM.  

The seeds I purchased a few years ago were from another member and while he boasted an approximate 50% germination rate i was lucky if I got 25%.  But there's a lot of variables that go into germination, and while I'm experienced I am not an expert....I just emulate what a few others do and have success and am working to improve my successes.

With that it's known that Butia and butia hybrids need higher soil temps for germination.  I'm talking upwards to 95F for the first several weeks until germination is noted before even backing down the temps.  

It's also possible with a small batch order you unfortunately received all duds.  Most that do produce seeds cut open a random sampling to check for viability and have an eye for what is good and what isn't without the need to.  I would hope that MPOM do the same thing and would not be shipping duds.

I highly doubt they attempted a backcross of anything back onto a Butiagrus for the simple fact that the amount of work that goes into this doesn't fit the bill, and would only produce a plant that begins to resemble more of one of the parents.  

Hopefully your contact with them will result in some amicable resolution.