Summer Project 09

[HereticHammer]

Sorry, but I am really not liking the ideas or the way this one is going.

First, there is no need to order all the plants from one vendor nor does that make sense for those in countries outside the chosen vendor's country.

I also do not like the idea of limiting participants or rolling extra participants into other projects. Instead of trying to enginere things as a giant government hand might do, why don't we just let the market do the limiting?

What I mean is pick a plant and let the number of people be decided by who gets the plant before supplies run out.

By not choosing only one vendor this will make things more than fair. I promise you that I have DOZENS of nurseries I buy from that I can track a plant down from and I am sure many others do too. lol We are addicts after all so we know how to get things for ourselves.

I also am NOT a fan of using Oak Hill as some gold standard. That is not fair to the MANY other quality nurseries and it limits us as to what we can choose by their catalog.

With the Internet it is fairly easy to do research so there really is no excuse there even if one does not have Orchidwiz which I also don't have nor do I want it. (FAR too expensive and since I have little interest in hybrids...ok... no interest in hybrids it makes it even less attractive to me)

There is the IOSPE. For those that don't know, that is the Internet Orchid Species Photo Encyclopedia. It is not perfect but it often has decent info and certainly enough to help narrow down a plant list.

We want as many people growing the same orchid as possible because, as I understand it, the goal is to explore the many ways of growing and blooming a certain species. Like any scientific type research it is best to have the largest pool of subjects to truly make solid conclusions of what worked and what didn't.

Oh, and I don't think the large plant/small plant or temperature splits would be wise because most are going to have a preference for one category and so many will still be locked out. For instance, I am only open to small plants in the intermediate to warm temps.

I am betting that also fits the majority of those who have participated until now.

I would suggest continuing along the lines of the previous project with a few alterations.

1. Get folks to sign up to the new project with no limit to participants at this point.

2. Have those participants throw out some orchid species to choose from.

3. Have some folks in each country check for availability of the species.

4. If all the plants fit the criteria and are relatively available in the participants' countries, then you go forward to voting and selecting a species.

5. Once the species is chosen, each person acquires that species from their preferred supplier and the market determines the final number of participants.

[quiltergal]

All I can say is Wow!

[HereticHammer]

Originally Posted by quiltergal

All I can say is Wow!

"Wow" as to how long my post was? lol I thought that too after I hit the submit button and saw how long it was. lol

Sorry

[nenella]

Hi Dave,
I have just realised that I hadn't posted here to say that yes I would very much like to participate in this summer project too.

[camille1585]

I think what you are suggesting is to basically do things like we used to do them in past projects. But it's not Sue doing the project, Dave is, and I think he has come up with a nice idea for how to run this project. It's different, which is nice.

Sorry, I don't really agree with your idea of letting the market decide who gets the plants. Basically, if 60 people sign up, and we then ignore that fact when picking a final plant and the plant we chose happens to be not widely available (like the haraella project) we might have those 60 people scambling for 30 plants? That is a very cruel way of selecting those who gets to play, since everyone who signs up in the beginning has a right to expect to get the plant. If there is any selection at at, it must be at the beginning of the project to keep things fair.

Oh, I think using one vendor was just a suggestion. I don't think that's the way things really will be done, since it seems we'll be searching in canada first and then looking for those plants elsewhere (at multiple places).
As for IOSPE, we got in the habit of double checking everything on OW because it seems like there is quite a lot of errors on that website concerning temperatures. OW is nice to use, but not essential. We're not saying that people should go buy it, but those who do have it can volunteer their services.

[flhiker]

Let me just say that this is not my first or second project. So you don't need to tell me how things were done. I've spent days looking for plants and only to have them shot down because someone could get them in other countries. I'm NOT interested in doing that this time.
LETS CHOOSE PLANT FROM VENDORS RATHER THEN IOSPE.
When we come right down to it this project is no different then any other projects we've done. The only differents is that the plant will be available before we suggest them.

Getting from 1 vendor (Oak Hill) was only a suggestion

I realize I not going to be able to make everyone happy.

OH! and by the way guy and gals I also have a full time job so doing un-necessary work is something I don't need.

[HereticHammer]

Hello Camille,

Well, I have to say if it is going to be done that way then I might skip it but I will wait and see what becomes of this.

As of now, I would like to be in the project.

There really is no need to limit participants and allowing the availability of the chosen orchid to do that is entirely fair. Everyone has the same availability to nurseries all over the internet. Also, simply checking with a couple of nurseries here and there is not a good indicator of how many plants of a certain species their are. Now this is taking into account that we are not going to select something outrageously rare.

[flhiker]

In order for People in Europe and Canada to get USA vendor plants then need to pay for a CITE certificate. Which is expensive. I don't think we want to force our friends spend more for a plant because they can't find it locally. And it works the other way to. If a plant is only available in Canada we would have to pay for that expensive certificate.

Originally Posted by HereticHammer

Hello Camille,

Well, I have to say if it is going to be done that way then I might skip it but I will wait and see what becomes of this.

As of now, I would like to be in the project.

There really is no need to limit participants and allowing the availability of the chosen orchid to do that is entirely fair. Everyone has the same availability to nurseries all over the internet. Also, simply checking with a couple of nurseries here and there is not a good indicator of how many plants of a certain species their are. Now this is taking into account that we are not going to select something outrageously rare.

[HereticHammer]

Originally Posted by flhiker

Let me just say that this is not my first or second project. So you don't need to tell me how things were done. I've spent days looking for plants and only to have them shot down because someone could get them in other countries. I'm NOT interested in doing that this time.
LETS CHOOSE PLANT FROM VENDORS RATHER THEN IOSPE.
When we come right down to it this project is no different then any other projects we've done. The only differents is that the plant will be available before we suggest them.

OH! and by the way guy and gals I also have a full time job so doing un-necessary work is something I don't need.

I don't remember anyone, and certainly not me, saying we should pick plants from IOSPE. You had mentioned that you do not have OW and so I suggested it as a possibility for doing a quick look up on a species. Obviously, you can not check availability from there.

I do think making sure the suggested plants are available is, of course, a great idea but just because this or that nursery, say Oak Hill, doesn't carry something does not mean it should be written off as not widely available. I know Andy's carries a ton of orchids and many of those are not carried by Oak Hill.

And I think the market deciding who is in the final tally for the project is the only fair way to decide numbers. If some arbitrary number is set like 25. then all those outside that number will feel just as bad as if there was no limit and they just couldn't find a plant because supplies were gone. Think of how ticked some would be if they were excluded from the project because there was an arbitrary number set and yet they found that the nursery they prefer has several dozen of the species in stock.

The main difference between the two approaches is that more will be able to participate by letting the market decide by how much is available because there are those of us who will search out the species from some small nurseries we might know of or that weren't checked for the general availability test.

[HereticHammer]

Originally Posted by flhiker

In order for People in Europe and Canada to get USA vendor plants then need to pay for a CITE certificate. Which is expensive. I don't think we want to force our friends spend more for a plant because they can't find it locally. And it works the other way to. If a plant is only available in Canada we would have to pay for that expensive certificate.

Why did you quote me??? I never suggested that one nursery be chosen or that availability be checked only in one country.

I HAVE BEEN SAYING THE EXACT OPPOSITE! We should not just check one nursery here or there for availability.