Post by billredlionpa on May 11, 2015 22:16:55 GMT -5
Caution: long rambling post ahead!
I'm trying to avoid reinventing the wheel so to speak and am hoping to get some opinions on how to keep track of a growing collection.
Here are a few of my questions:
How much info do you guys put on your plant labels vs save in your head or in a spreadsheet on your computer?
Could anyone else decipher your collection without your help?
I keep a grow list, but it really doesn't contain enough data for me. For now, I remember where I got each plant, but I want good records for the future. If the location data (or how the plant came into my collection for that matter) gets lost, it would lessen the value of the plant in the hobby (what if you thought you had a 100% Oreo that was actually a hybrid?) You could still enjoy the plant, but it would be severed from its origins and no one would ever again know exactly what it is.
So, let's say you have a S. Flava. Your label could just say that, plus the location it's from. Or, you could add a stock number that is searchable on a spreadsheet. In the spreadsheet, you could have notes like "I got this from Jim Smith February of 2011. It is originally from xxx location, and I last divided it on..." Etc etc.
You could even put data in the stock number such as:
Stock number sequence: Starts with ‘S’ for sarracenia, ‘P’ for Pinguicula, etc.
[ S ], [15](year it came into your collection)[0316](month/year you last divided it)[001](unique identifier
number) once number reaches 999 it can roll back to 001 because the preceding data will have changed many
times over.
So, a Sarracenia purchased in 2014, last divided in January 2016, and assigned the next tag number would be: S140116001.
And then you have plant offspring, etc...
I'm sure there must be some established conventions in the hobby that address these questions. Any help would be appreciated!
Part of what prompted this post is I'm getting ready to redo all my labels. I bought what I hope will be a really good box of black graphite pencils for the task:
I'm trying to avoid reinventing the wheel so to speak and am hoping to get some opinions on how to keep track of a growing collection.
Here are a few of my questions:
How much info do you guys put on your plant labels vs save in your head or in a spreadsheet on your computer?
Could anyone else decipher your collection without your help?
I keep a grow list, but it really doesn't contain enough data for me. For now, I remember where I got each plant, but I want good records for the future. If the location data (or how the plant came into my collection for that matter) gets lost, it would lessen the value of the plant in the hobby (what if you thought you had a 100% Oreo that was actually a hybrid?) You could still enjoy the plant, but it would be severed from its origins and no one would ever again know exactly what it is.
So, let's say you have a S. Flava. Your label could just say that, plus the location it's from. Or, you could add a stock number that is searchable on a spreadsheet. In the spreadsheet, you could have notes like "I got this from Jim Smith February of 2011. It is originally from xxx location, and I last divided it on..." Etc etc.
You could even put data in the stock number such as:
Stock number sequence: Starts with ‘S’ for sarracenia, ‘P’ for Pinguicula, etc.
[ S ], [15](year it came into your collection)[0316](month/year you last divided it)[001](unique identifier
number) once number reaches 999 it can roll back to 001 because the preceding data will have changed many
times over.
So, a Sarracenia purchased in 2014, last divided in January 2016, and assigned the next tag number would be: S140116001.
And then you have plant offspring, etc...
I'm sure there must be some established conventions in the hobby that address these questions. Any help would be appreciated!
Part of what prompted this post is I'm getting ready to redo all my labels. I bought what I hope will be a really good box of black graphite pencils for the task: