SHAS­TRI BOODAN

T&T Or­chid So­ci­ety (TTOS) is look­ing for Gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance to es­tab­lish a lab­o­ra­to­ry to de­vel­op hy­brid species and prop­a­gate lo­cal va­ri­eties of or­chids that are in­creas­ing­ly be­com­ing rare. This was an­nounced by An­tho­ny Tangkai, the pres­i­dent- elect of the so­ci­ety for the 2012-2013 term fol­low­ing the an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing of the TTOS on Sun­day at the Hor­ti­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety Head­quar­ters, La­dy Chan­cel­lor Road, Port-of-Spain. Tangkai said there was tremen­dous scope for em­ploy­ment and ex­port of or­na­men­tal plants, es­pe­cial­ly or­chids. He said the Gov­ern­ment could part­ner with the 56-year-old TTOS to set up a per­ma­nent ex­hi­bi­tion area and a lab­o­ra­to­ry.

He said the scope for the gen­er­a­tion of in­come from for­eign ex­change was good once that project got go­ing since there was a de­mand for plants around the world. Tangkai said the ex­port of or­na­men­tals would al­so con­tribute in di­ver­si­fy­ing the econ­o­my away from its present pe­tro­le­um base. He said a lab to cre­ate clones of lo­cal va­ri­eties was need­ed since sev­er­al lo­cal plants were be­com­ing scarce in the wild through over-har­vest­ing by col­lec­tors and by un­scrupu­lous per­sons for ex­port. At the elec­tions on Sun­day, Robin Naipaul and An­to­nio de Gannes were elect­ed as vice pres­i­dents; Ger­vais de Matas takes up the trea­sur­er job while Di­anne Hug­gins was vot­ed in as sec­re­tary.