This is the main focus of the Culton project, the ground level of the database and the reason why the project exists. To develop and maintain the checklist will be a continous process involving hopefully a large group of volunteer moderators and hopefully also some paid staff members eventually.
Sources
During the time this project has developed, we have worked with data from many sources. When we worked within the framework of the assignment for the plant association KVANN, it was naturally data from members that was in focus, especially Stephen Barstow’s extensive plant lists based on many years of collecting data from The Plantlist, Plants For a Future (PFAF) and many other sources. In addition, we worked with data from the Norwegian clone archives, as well as an older set from Nordgens SESTO- database, which is now no longer maintained after they switched to using GRIN.
We now see this as an important experience background to uncover the issues we have had to solve for the Culton project, before we could start working more systematically on building our datasets. There were simply so many problems related to systematics and naming, so many inconsistencies between the data sets, and also errors and inconsistencies within the sets, that it was difficult to know what to trust. In fact, this was one of the reasons why the Culton project came about in the first place: the need to collect all this and make a proper checklist once and for all, and get out of the situation where everyone was sitting on their own and collectively doing double work which is also a major source of error.
Sources we currently use:
- CropTrust’s Genesys: https://www.genesys-pgr.org/a/overview
- Eurisco Home (ipk-gatersleben.de)
- Nordisk og Baltisk genbank (GeNBIS): https://www.nordic-baltic-genebanks.org/gringlobal/search.aspx
- The Czech genebank: https://grinczech.vurv.cz/gringlobal/search.aspx
- SKUD Svensk kulturväxtdatabas: https://skud.slu.se/nav/taxa
- UPOV: https://www.upov.int/portal/index.html.en
- The lists from Theo Damen which again comes from many sources
Tell us about other sources we should check!
Cultivar status
As described in our systematics approach, we build upon the gene bank types and the MCPD for plants. To also include livestock and microorganisms we must probably adjust this list, but the principle will be the same. Cultivar types will be stored in a column in the cultivar table and be displayed in frontend where needed.
For plants, the data will to a large degree have to come from the gene banks, so we become dependent on good cooperation with them, e.g. with Crop Trust. We have initiated a dialogue with them about access to the Genesys data.
Method
The cultivar data will be in one main table with a synonym system, as well as additional tables with property data for the individual cultivars.
The first cultivar data set is created by focusing on one crop type/livestock/microorganism (symbio) and carrying out the following procedure:
- derive the names in use from the above sources
- normalize and merge the data where it is natural
- keep the references to the sources in separate columns
- give all entries unique ID’s (persistent UUID)
- basically set all entries with the status “unverified”, i.e. that a decision has not been taken on what should be accepted and what should be synonyms
Once this initial work is done, we will develop a user interface for frontend monitoring at culton.info. Here, the monitoring team will work with verification of the imported data, as well as ongoing assessment of suggestions from the public.
Data
It would not be any point in providing a full listing of all cultivars, breeds and strains, as there will quickly be many hundreds of thousands of entries. Instead, we will develop a number of ways to search and compile information that can then be exported or printed.
Our first beta version of the checklist service will run from beta.culton.org. Here at culton.org development datasets, mostly in spreadsheet format, are intended for internal discussion among logged in participants of the project. If such data has been posted, there is a link to it below here:
Last Updated on 2023-09-02 by Karl Aakerro