The companies are the donors, like Oakes daylilies, Touch Of Nature and Santa Rosa Gardens are a couple of donors.
What is your new avatar daylily?

Awww, Ashton and Becky, you guys are so sweet!!! Thank you!! I couldn't figure out why my acorns were going up until I went to my system messages. Thank you!

Larry - I'm not sure I came across correctly. That, or I misunderstood your more recent post. What I meant to say is that the Color Description is good for people who go to that flower's page directly and actually read the color description. With what I know from a programming standpoint, though, I'm pretty sure that the "Flower Color" part is what the database uses to pull results when someone does a search for a particular color of flower. I've done searches on here that only have a couple of variables (such as "purple" and "fragrant") and the results yielded were far less than what they should be, but I think it's because there are very few daylilies in the database that have the "Flower Color" field filled out.

Ashton - My new avatar is Beautiful Edgings. Aptly named, wouldn't you agree? I think that particular picture is from last week. I'm not normally into pastels, but Beautiful Edgings is...well, beautiful.

I edited my previous post to make it more clear. In simple terms the "Flower Color" box is just a distraction.

Bud count and branching count already exist in the database, and is already filled in for every cultivar, as far as I know.

Check with the daylily expert you interviewed on the podcast. They are not required items by the AHS, so most of them are blank in those areas.

dave said:Bud count and branching count already exist in the database, and is already filled in for every cultivar, as far as I know.

@Dave - Thank you for checking in on us in this thread. Larry taught me how to summon you, so blame him! Haha! Just kidding.

Sadly, though, most daylilies don't have the bud/branch information, which is what prompted this thread. Out of all of the daylilies I have researched this month so far (hundreds), I would wager that only about 5-10%, at best, have bud/branch information listed.

I mistakenly thought that detail was brought in through the registry.

Well, we have the field in the database and it can be filled in. Maybe the process of filling it in is too inconvenient? Do we need a more convenient way to check off that value?

If you do an advanced search of the AHS registration database, requesting a bud count of more than 2 and branching greater than 1, you get 31,592 results from the 79,352 registered daylilies. That's 40%.

Dave, yes that is exactly what we are looking for but we need help in how to implement it!

Sue and Dave - If there is data for bud count and branching for 40%, any idea why it didn't transfer over to the ATP database?

Becky,they could have, it is just that 40 per cent may not be getting many hits yet, I lot of them might be new intros that we can't afford for another 10 years.

Larry, you've hit the nail on the head (depending on one's definition of "new") because if you do a search of the AHS database for more than 2 buds and more than 1 branch plus registration year not after 1995 there are only 5 results. If you change that to not after 1990 there are no results.

Y'all are fine detectives!!!

I checked the numbers.

On Bud Count, 35,311 cultivars have the data filled in.
On Branching, 35,011 have the data.

There are 79,879 cultivars in the daylilies database.

So, nearly 44% of the cultivars have the data present. That's not bad.

The big question is: how can we make it more convenient for users to input this data into cultivars who are currently missing it. Right now, you go to the plant in question, and click on "Edit data details" and on that page you check off the appropriate fields and submit the page. That's pretty quick and easy but maybe people are hoping for something even easier? I'm open to making a new method available to people.

dave said:I mistakenly thought that detail was brought in through the registry.

Well, we have the field in the database and it can be filled in. Maybe the process of filling it in is too inconvenient? Do we need a more convenient way to check off that value?

I think it is, but only for registrations that had that information at the time of registration. In this thread, we have been discussing ways of encouraging bud/branch/foliage/scape information contributions by ATP members. Some ideas that have been thrown around are:
* thread 'events' that feature particular cultivars that need bud/branch/foliage/scape info and all users submit their findings in the thread and an average/consensus is gathered from it and entered into the database
* extra acorns for bud/branch information that users submit updates for in the database
* a form that users can fill out that would tally results and determine the typical/average data and input it to the database
[This is a generalization of what we have discussed; for more details, you may wish to read from the beginning of this thread.]

We're open to other ideas, too. Although there is a spot for comments for each plant in the database, it isn't easy enough for a viewer to see bud/branch/etc. at a glance when it is buried in comments, especially if they're looking through dozens or hundreds of cultivars.

Also, users seem to be more engaged in forums rather than directly altering the database, so the forums may yield better participation if we use the forums somehow to make an 'event' out of it. (To give an example, it's like rescue dogs. People may have it in the back of their mind to go to the humane society some day to see if there is a dog that suits them--or maybe they don't. But if there is a dog featured on TV, then it suddenly spurs interest and they and everyone else want that dog!)

dave said:
There are 79,879 cultivars in the daylilies database.

The AHS database only lists 79,352 daylilies registered/recorded, that's 527 less than ATP has??

I actually think we would still want this even if every single plant in the database had the boxes filled in. That is the data for the person who registered the plant. That is helpful, it is a good general comparative guide. But really I think what we are striving for is a little more feedback on how the plants perform in the local area. We see what some of the photos look like that the hybridizers submit (does anybody ever get a plant the color as some of those), not saying most of them aren't pretty good. But, that is why the photos are so great, in many cases you can see others photos of the plants, and that is what we would like for this info. That's my feelings on the subject, others I hope will join in and state if that is a right assumption.

That 527 might be very new not imported in yet, so that would indicate (if that is the reason) just how fast those new intros are pouring in.

Seedfork said:That 527 might be very new not imported in yet, so that would indicate (if that is the reason) just how fast those new intros are pouring in.

So you're thinking they're getting into the ATP database before the AHS's? Or am I out to lunch (or maybe supper, maybe I should go have some, it's been a loooong day).

dave said:
The big question is: how can we make it more convenient for users to input this data into cultivars who are currently missing it. Right now, you go to the plant in question, and click on "Edit data details" and on that page you check off the appropriate fields and submit the page. That's pretty quick and easy but maybe people are hoping for something even easier? I'm open to making a new method available to people.

I'm not sure this part is a good idea. Might be a lot of work for whomever has to approve it and it may allow official registration info to be overridden and I think that wouldn't be good. Also, different growers are going to have different data for the same cultivars so there might be constant submissions attempting to change the data. Some data needs to be fixed or it will be a mess and impossible to keep up with.