I was alerted today of this discussion thread by a friend of mine and felt it needed a response from me to clear things up. I also received an email earlier in the week from Kelly Griffin inquiring about the patent process for Kara's Stripes. I responded to him at that point, but I will be more thorough in my response here to clear any confusion. First my response to Kelly's inquiry:
Yes I am the right person for this question. Although there are many varied variegated forms of Agave attenuata in cultivation, I have never seen one exhibiting the same characteristics as the one I patented. I'm sure the plant you are referring to is genetically different from mine. Mine came up as a sport from a large clump of Agave attenuata I had growing on a hillside at my previous property. I often find variegation in my masses of Agave but Kara's Stripes is the most dramatic. I have another that displays the same variegation as Kara's Stripes but only with half the color intensity, thereby making it really, just another Agave. And yet still another was accidently created during Kara's Stripes tissue culture that comes out as a solid gold without variegation. Randy Baldwin and I decided it wasn't really worth patenting. When I first dabbled with this plant, I had only seen 2 variegated Agave attenuatas in my life. One in person at Tropic world Nursery in San Diego, and another in the book Tropica. Each was very different from mine, both having very pronounced and bold white striping. But now with the internet, I have seen photos of probably 25 different forms of Agave attenuata, some much more beautiful than mine, some mildly similar to mine, but none exactly the same. (end of response)
And to further clarify matters, at the time we considered doing the patent, I had a lot of people look at my plant to see if they had ever seen anything like it including Randy Baldwin of San Marcos Growers, George Hull of Western States Nursery, Robin Stockwell of Succulent Gardens Nursery, Greg Starr of Starr Nursery, Brian Kemble curator of the Ruth Bancroft Garden and Tony Avent of Plant Delights Nursery. These were, and still are, the biggest Agave experts I know. On top of that, the plant was sent out for field trials to numerous growers including Heather May of Rancho Tissue Technologies (I was told Kelly is an employee at Rancho Soledad Nursery). Non of these respected plant experts had seen the plant before nor noted that it resembled any existing A. attenuata variegates they knew of. If any had, we may have reconsidered the patent since you want to be sure you have something that is unique and won't be contested since the patent process is both long and expensive.
Finally, if I have not put you to sleep yet, here is a more elaborate account of the 13 years it took from finding and isolating the plant to applying for its patent.
Golden Gate Palms&Exotics
If anyone is interested in propagating Kara's Stripes, they should simply contact Plant Haven, the manager of the patent, and arrange for a grower's contract.
PlantHaven… plant breeders' agents
Regards,
Gary Gragg