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Collection/Nursery/Orchard Management Software


www.dadluvsu.com

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Aloha y'all! :shaka-2: (swweeeeeet, a new shaka emoji! B))

Does anyone manage their  public or private collections, palmetums, nurseries, orchards, etc with software?  Something with mapping capabilites and includes IPM scheduling/journaling etc.?

I can't afford to shell out the clams to get something like the big boys use (ESRI's ArcGIS type mapping software, WOW!) but I've finally got a few plants that are going in the ground and I don't want to lose track of anything...  

 

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Depending on how detailed it has to be, Excel (or a few of the freeware MS Office alternatives) might be enough.  While this map of my property could use an update, I can certainly use it to maintain a list of my plants and their locations in relation to others on my property.

201903112130_Landscape.png

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Lakeland, FL

USDA Zone 1990: 9a  2012: 9b  2023: 10a | Sunset Zone: 26 | Record Low: 20F/-6.67C (Jan. 1985, Dec.1962) | Record Low USDA Zone: 9a

30-Year Avg. Low: 30F | 30-year Min: 24F

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2 hours ago, Neil C said:

Only in the US could a house look like a gun :0)

Regards Neil

LMAO!  Didn't think about it that way, but you have a point. 

@PersistentPalms If you don't want your house to look like a gun, update your map more frequently than I do and include a legend so you don't lose stuff ;)

201903122130_Landscape.png

Lakeland, FL

USDA Zone 1990: 9a  2012: 9b  2023: 10a | Sunset Zone: 26 | Record Low: 20F/-6.67C (Jan. 1985, Dec.1962) | Record Low USDA Zone: 9a

30-Year Avg. Low: 30F | 30-year Min: 24F

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Not exactly ready to offer you a solution just yet, but I'm working on something very similar to this.  The motivation for building it was initially similar to yours, mainly to keep track of my own collection, irrigation habits, fertilization, inventory, etc. Then, after visiting a couple of botanical gardens and seeing how lacking some of their maps were, I began adding mapping features as an absolute requirement for the long run. 

I'm building it exclusively for the iPhone as step one, but if I get positive feedback and there is truly a demand for something like this, I am willing to create an Android version as well. I'm intentionally treating the web as an afterthought for now,  since most collectors/serious gardeners would likely find more use for something like this out in the field, among their plants, smartphone in hand. Could be wrong though. 

As for timing, I'm hoping to officially release the initial mapping-less and FREE version later this year hopefully by June 2019.  If you or anyone else feels like this would be of interest or would like to learn more about my little project, please feel free to connect with me. I'm pretty into this stuff right now.

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Zoli, I'd be interested in something like that.  I'm not sure the resolution on the iPhone's GPS, but I've always wondered whether there is something that could combine a picture with the GPS and then export all that to something like Excel or Google Sheets or something similar. 

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Resident of Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, San Diego, CA and Pahoa, HI.  Former garden in Vista, CA.  Garden Photos

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16 hours ago, PersistentPalms said:

Aloha y'all! :shaka-2: (swweeeeeet, a new shaka emoji! B))

Does anyone manage their  public or private collections, palmetums, nurseries, orchards, etc with software?  Something with mapping capabilites and includes IPM scheduling/journaling etc.?

I can't afford to shell out the clams to get something like the big boys use (ESRI's ArcGIS type mapping software, WOW!) but I've finally got a few plants that are going in the ground and I don't want to lose track of anything...  

 

 

I wrote an inventory prog some time ago that I use to keep track of what I have, where I got it and How much I paid. It is written in php/mysql/html5 and I can give you the code if you wish to modify it to include other features.

Take a look at it

http://selva.cabal.mx

 

Richard

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1 hour ago, Justin said:

Zoli, I'd be interested in something like that.  I'm not sure the resolution on the iPhone's GPS, but I've always wondered whether there is something that could combine a picture with the GPS and then export all that to something like Excel or Google Sheets or something similar. 

GPS support may even be overkill for gardens less than, say, an acre.  GPS would, of course make sense for truly large arboretums with many trails. Features like locating a specific specimen of interest is nearly impossible in a place like Oahu's Lyon.

For starters, I was thinking more along the lines of a simple 2D map that you could even hand draw on an iPad, more or less to scale and which you can then populate with the plants in your garden. Good enough for keeping track of stuff and can even be made shareable with garden visitors if they have the same app. Export/import features are a piece of cake once you have access to the data.

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I've got a database for my place (3 acres) with date planted, size when planted, who I purchased it from, etc., but the "location" I have is somewhat ambiguous and makes sense only to me.  If I had actual location, it would be better, because then for a plant I can't remember, I could pull up the Lat/Long and find that in my spreadsheet.

Resident of Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, San Diego, CA and Pahoa, HI.  Former garden in Vista, CA.  Garden Photos

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It makes perfect sense to want to browse a map for a 3 acre piece of land. Location data could absolutely be stored/retrieved with fairly good granularity. Think, geocaching for plants.  Likewise, going from spreadsheet or some other table view to map view should be equally doable. Good idea worth investing in, for sure.

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I've been keeping an Excel database for my plantings for ten years on my 8-acre property. It's up to 464 entries, name, date, number of plants for each species, and a rough description of where it is, including which other palms are near it. I almost never forget what is where, but I can never remember when I planted it. I could use a GPS and get geodetic coordinates, but it's intimidating when one has 464 entries already. And I don't know if any of the computer maps will really show enough detail to be a good visual aid.

I also keep a data base of my seed acquisitions, number of seeds germinating, source, size, description, etc. I use something called Lemmy, a PC version of the old VI editor. Started using it in 1999, before I had any experience with Excel.

Mike Merritt

Big Island of Hawaii, windward, rainy side, 740 feet (225 meters) elevation

165 inches (4,200 mm) of rain per year, 66 to 83 deg F (20 to 28 deg C) in summer, 62 to 80 deg F (16.7 to 26.7 Deg C) in winter.

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I've been using Airtable (https://airtable.com/), initially the free version but adding hundreds of photos eventually made me switch to the paid one.

It takes 30 minutes to set up a relational database with the features you want, and then it's a snap to use (I have tables for genera, species -- with cultivation info, and plantings -- with purchase date, size, price, source, and location in garden, among others, and fertilization schedules). I walk around the garden with my phone and can instantly add photos for any palm in the database (also fun to track progress over time). Once you've set up a table with species, it's just a matter of adding your acquisitions. I use planters for the location, but the photos are all geo-tagged by the phone, and it would be easy to extract that info.

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Well, if anything this topic got the attention of people with very little post. Not sure why. Lol

Searle Brothers Nursery Inc.

and The Rainforest Collection.

Southwest Ranches,Fl.

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5 hours ago, Jeff Searle said:

Well, if anything this topic got the attention of people with very little post. Not sure why. Lol

Probably because we don't have much else to contribute in terms of actual knowledge about palms yet?

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I also use a spreadsheet to track my plants. I keep track of when I bought them, size, cost and who I got them from. I have a location which is just the name of subsection of my garden. It works pretty well. However, I was interested in logging these in a better way since the plant list is growing. I heard about a software package that botanical gardens commonly use for this purpose. It has the mapping feature and the mobile app features. You can search for the label and it tells you about your plant via a database app. 

It's more than I want to spend for my little garden but If I had 5 acres of densely planted gardens I would certainly buy it. here is the link to the web site.

https://www.irisbg.com/

 

 

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Tracy

Stuart, Florida

Zone 10a

So many palms, so little room

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On 3/11/2019 at 11:31 PM, Neil C said:

Only in the US could a house look like a gun :0)

Regards Neil

Lmao! 

Zone 8a/8b Greenville, NC 

Zone 9a/9b Bluffton, SC

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5 hours ago, Tracy S said:

I also use a spreadsheet to track my plants. I keep track of when I bought them, size, cost and who I got them from. I have a location which is just the name of subsection of my garden. It works pretty well. However, I was interested in logging these in a better way since the plant list is growing. I heard about a software package that botanical gardens commonly use for this purpose. It has the mapping feature and the mobile app features. You can search for the label and it tells you about your plant via a database app. 

It's more than I want to spend for my little garden but If I had 5 acres of densely planted gardens I would certainly buy it. here is the link to the web site.

https://www.irisbg.com/

 

 

Wow, this thing is expensive! I'd say, at that price point, either this thing is flawless or there just isn't an alternative. 

For what it's worth, I installed their iOS app just to check it out and I couldn't even back out from under the Explore Other Gardens menu point. So much for flawless.

Anyway, still very cool that someone built a system like this. Thanks for sharing the link!

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I looked into software several years ago to keep track of everything I've been planting here...palms...trees...other stuff.

I've been keeping track of everything in a big Excel file that has served its purpose, but has nowhere near the functionality that I want long term.

BG-base is what botanical places have used for years, but I've run a trial version of it and it's a dinosaur program that makes you feel like you're stuck in 1995 on the verge of MS DOS and Windows 95.

When I looked at Iris BG 4 or so years ago, what really drew me in were the mapping and mobile capabilities.  My biggest problem (and one that I'm sure others have also) is getting behind on updating and forgetting info.   If I could update as I'm receiving and planting items, it would great.....along with adding GPS data.   I also wanted to be able to take planting pictures, future growth pics, flowering pics, etc.  I have lots of phone pictures, but I wanted them matched to the individual accessions.    The biggest problem back then was the mobile required you to go on eBay or somewhere and find a dinosaur Windows CE phone to run their software on.   To me this was useless.   They now have iOS and Android apps, though I haven't looked into how well these integrate with the base program.

What I ended up using for a short time was PIRS - Plant Information Record System - which is based in FileMaker.  For what you're looking for, this may be one of the best options.   http://www.botanicaltech.com/

http://www.botanicaltech.com/databases.html

It takes some getting used to, as all programs do.   I needed to change a number of fields in it to suit the needs here better.  An issue I had was that with photos, they were attached to species.  So if you have several different accessions of the same species, the pictures were all attached to all of them.  To me, this seemed silly, as I don't want just an example photo, but rather that of individuals.   There are mobile versions of FileMaker that can be linked up, but it is not a simple process.  For computer based database, spray logs, potting up, etc....it may be the best solution for you.   The database itself is distributed free of charge, but you need to purchase FileMaker.

I personally have gone back to my Excel file for now, as it's much faster for me to put in a list of things.  I think inevitably I will go to Iris BG, but there is a big $$$ cost upfront and recurring annual maintenance $$$.   I really want the integrated mapping and image capabilities and future ability to have the maps online.  Most of the 2014 plantings have printed labels with QR codes on them that link to info pages.   When we have horse show events here, it would be awesome to have everything openly available.

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On 3/13/2019 at 9:37 PM, Jeff Searle said:

Well, if anything this topic got the attention of people with very little post. Not sure why. Lol

Maybe they’re actually busy growing ...outside.

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The Palm Mahal

Hollywood Fla

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47 minutes ago, waykoolplantz said:

Maybe they’re actually busy growing ...outside.

I'll go with this option as well ;).  This thread caught my attention because I work in IT, so I like having data on-demand for all of my plants.  At the same time, growing palms is one of the things that gets me away from the screen, so I try not to go overboard with it.  That and I'm cheap - so freeware or bust.

Lakeland, FL

USDA Zone 1990: 9a  2012: 9b  2023: 10a | Sunset Zone: 26 | Record Low: 20F/-6.67C (Jan. 1985, Dec.1962) | Record Low USDA Zone: 9a

30-Year Avg. Low: 30F | 30-year Min: 24F

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@Loxahatchee Adam Not surprised about using Excel, I read somewhere on social media recently, that practically all enterprise level software is effectively competing with Excel.  That's true enough to make me chuckle at least a little bit.

In general, I think there is demand for a decent, easy to use, and inexpensive software system for tracking collections. I think when you are growing plants at scale, especially rare and difficult to grow ones, there can be tremendous energy expended on getting things just right. Serious hobbyist, non-commercial growers know what I'm talking about.  Like, if you somehow procure a single fresh seed of a Pelagodoxa, for example, you might invest hours reading up on cultural techniques and climatic requirements. You really want this thing to survive!

Botanical gardens are on a similar mission, though at a much larger scale with far greater resources. Among their primary goals is--or should be,  plant conservation. Getting things just right is also at the top of their list.  To say nothing of the importance of scientific research.

Then there are nurserymen and "ego" hobbyists/collectors. There are definitely exceptions, but I can also see how this thread may seem silly and unnecessary to them. Their motivations and incentives are simply different. And that's fine too. (By the way, in no way am I suggesting that nurserymen are also ego-drenched, plant snobs. The latter is a very distinct and independent species.)

So yeah,  in short, I think I'm going to build this thing. It may take me a year or so, but I think I'll get started. I'll keep anyone interested in the loop. Thanks everyone, great thread! 

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I'm really appreciate all the input!  Very creative uses of excel and other formats.  As a small family farm (who is all in and scraping by nowadays eating rice, bananas, and an occasional broody hen to get this thing off the ground) I have to trim expenses any which way I can and those platforms that cost thousands and have yearly fees (grr....  I loathe bein kept on the hook) just aren't an option for me.  I can get by quickbooks, a handheld GPS, excel and calendar reminders on the phone, but just thought it would be really cool if there was an app that could do it all...  

Zoli, sounds like you're gonna write the software...  keep me posted.  I love freeware (cough cough :lol:), but a reasonable fee ($500 or less (LESS!)) isn't unrealistic for something that meets ALL the needs....  I'm sure there are many others that would gladly line up with cash in hand to purchase.  There is a demand for this product and no supply anywhere that I have found.

My situation is a 20 acre farm with roughly 15 in agroforestry style row orchard, primarily breadfruit trees and support species right now.  But I want to incorporate interplanted crops, heart of palm, banana, sugar, papaya, fruit trees,exotics, etc... and of course my first plant passion, palms!  (yes mr. moderator we are staying on topic :blush:).  I started out with a conceptual plan on paper but in real life I only had room for roughly 680 trees not the 700 I planned on paper, so mapping function imposed over satellite view would be amazing.  And being able to keep track of different varieties of plant would be important to me, different cultivars of avocado set fruit at different times of the year, so maybe some kind of reminder function based on calendar intervals?  That would be a must for fertilization/chemical application scheduling etc...  Maybe it should be cloud based (i know i know, on-going fees then) but then multiple users could upload data and could be accessed by other users, ie my dad sees a pest problem on tree 7, row 12B, inputs the data on his device and I get a notification on my phone...  I'm sure I could go on and on with wants and would be more than happy to collaborate from this side of a software project if you do begin to develop something...  maybe a small royalty check would be in order when we start selling bigtime :D

 

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But being able to keep track of what is where is super important...  I've got many varieties of sugar cane I want to keep track of.  Also, for example, this Attalea was collected, germinated and gifted to me by Al Bredeson shortly after I moved here; he's not with us any more so it is important to me not lose track of it.

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IMG_6774.jpg

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Thanks for your inputs. I think the first steps need to be a requirements gathering phase, where I compile a list of the absolute must-haves for a usable system. Cloud storage, push notifications, and fertilization schedules sound like they might be nice-to-have extra features, on top of some of the true value adds, like mapping support, detailed plant info with history and photos, and other tracking features. I can write up some of these "bare minimum" features, as I see them, and PM you a list for feedback in the coming days. 

I am absolutely open to collaborating with you or anyone else with valuable insight. I love growing palms and many other plants, but I do not presume to know much about growing them outdoors or even indoors, at a large scale. Your pain points are only clear to you and others in similar situations. I need to understand the problem space precisely and cannot hope to just "get it right" by myself. Writing great software is not rocket science, provided you have the right people, vision, and necessary resources. These can be hard to come by unfortunately, but that doesn't mean we can't try.

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IrisBG is really for larger gardens and institutional users. While it isn't the right fit for you, I can't praise it highly enough. It's true that BG-Base, although quite stable, is cumbersome and non-intuitive to use, and is based upon an ancient platform. A number of public gardens have switched to Iris.

I researched the various database possibilities for the Chicago Park District conservatories several years ago and ultimately selected Iris as the best solution for our needs.

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  • 4 months later...

Just wanted to offer a little update on what I've been working on. This thread mentions the word "collection" in the title, so I don't think I'm too far off topic.

Managing my own increasingly large collection of seedlings and other palms in various stages of growth, pot sizes, watering requirements, has prompted me to look into alternate options. Like @PersistentPalms mentions above, there were very few, indeed.

So I created my own. This version is primarily designed for indoor and/or container culture (solves my problem), but there's no reason why it couldn't be extended to support entire nurseries/orchards with added effort.

The app is called Sprouted and is available on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. While it is free to install, it does include an optional premium package that if purchased, would directly go into supporting my ongoing efforts. Please check it out if you are interested and are an iOS user. All feedback, from positive to negative is greatly appreciated.

That is pretty much it for now. As for future direction,  I'm going to be reaching out to various organizations in the coming weeks/months to gather further requirements and size up demand. 

Thanks for reading. To be continued...

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