Anyone who sells plants? I need advice.

[Blake_HTX]

Hello all, I'm doing a indoor/outdoor operation trying various growing methods with various plants. As you all know this hobby can become expensive, so I thought why not sell some of these plants to pay for my operation. For example, there is an old couple that my grandmother was telling me about, they grow and sell hundreds of hibiscus plants every year. They use craigslist, Facebook and other social media to announce sales events. Then on the day(s) of the events they drag all their plants to the driveway and usually have a pretty big turn out. Now I am aware of the licenses/permits and whatnot, but one thing that I have been questioning is plant variety protection (PVP). What I want to do is pick a few different varieties of toms, peppers and various other plants and clone them and sell off the clones and transplants.
Would I be in violation if the plant of choice is PVP? Even if not commercial? (backyard/garage-sale type operation). If so I don't want to take any chances. Is there a list of NON-PVP plants somewhere? I found this http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/pvp/pvplist.pl
and the only variety i have that's in this database is indigo rose. Would that mean all my other varieties are not PVP? Also I assume in order to propagate/sell these pvp varieties I'd have to pay royalties to the patent holder? A lot of dumb questions, I know, but I cant seem to find answers. Thanks everyone.

[Fred Hempel]

In my experience, cloning tomato plants to sell would be a losing operation. Your costs would likely be much more than you could get in sales.

[Blake_HTX]

Well it wont only be tomatoes and it wont only be clones. And I'm doing it regardless of how much money I make. This is something I'd like to do and if i can make some money doing it then great.

[Cole_Robbie]

PVP protection is weak. I wouldn't even worry about it.

You can't go to jail for an intellectual property law crime. The only punishment is 3x your profit. If you are a small-time operation, no one cares what you do. There's not enough money involved to make it worthwhile to sue you.

[Blake_HTX]

That's what I've been thinking and have been reading from others. Thanks for your input, Cole.

[Wi-sunflower]

None of the heirlooms are PVP so you don't have to worry about any of them.

Carol

[BigVanVader]

Any avenue of advertising is good be it Craigslist, business cards, a website etc. Clone if you want, I never worry about PVP or anything and another option I find easy is to buy plugs and re-sell them as it saves time/work. I can never find plugs of many Heirlooms though, but if you start selling flowers then plugs is the way to go.

[Blake_HTX]

Originally Posted by Wi-sunflower

None of the heirlooms are PVP so you don't have to worry about any of them.

Carol

Thank you I was wondering this last night, while lying in bed lol.

[Blake_HTX]

Originally Posted by BigVanVader

Any avenue of advertising is good be it Craigslist, business cards, a website etc. Clone if you want, I never worry about PVP or anything and another option I find easy is to buy plugs and re-sell them as it saves time/work. I can never find plugs of many Heirlooms though, but if you start selling flowers then plugs is the way to go.

Cool looks like i got what i was looking for.. For the most part no one really cares about what you're selling in your garage sale type operation. Just hope none of my neighbors get salty and call someone though. lol Also thanks for the advice i do plan to make some business cards (my cousin has a good hook up) craigslist and facebook will probably be my main advertisement though. Maybe some signs around the neighborhood.

[ContainerTed]

Give your neighbors a couple free plants or some ripe tomatoes. That'll shut'em up.

[Blake_HTX]

Originally Posted by ContainerTed

Give your neighbors a couple free plants or some ripe tomatoes. That'll shut'em up.

Haha good idea!