New Idea - Plant Focus Threads - Feedback Needed

[Nifty]

Hey amazing TEG members, we've got an idea we'd like to get your thoughts and feedback on!

Sumi had worked on an AMAZING project on BYC called "Featured Breeds" where she created a thread for each breed of chicken with general informaion, links, and discussions. It's been a great resource over there and we thought it might be a good idea to do something simlar here, but for different species of plants, focusing on the most common and/or interesting species.

Check it out here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/chicken-breed-focus-project.975504/post-15189194

Once we have a good set of threads we'd like to introduce a weekly "Plant Focus" featured thread to bring to the fore the various plants our visitors are most curious about and wanting to discuss in detail.

A few questions:

1. What are your thoughts on this idea?
2. Using Sumi's great examples on BYC, what would you like to see in these plant focus threads?
3. Which plants would you like to see us focus on first?
4. Any volunteers wanting to help start these threads?

I'm looking forward to your thoughts and ideas!!

 

[Xerocles]

What a great idea. But perhaps a little TOO grandiose? There are 80 something breeds listed in BYC, and each has maybe an average of 5 recognized varieties?
Veggies alone would eclipse that number with varieties in the ?hundreds? Then to fruits, flowers, and ornamentals.
i.e. tomatoes. 1 thread? Or one for slicers, one for paste, cherry, determinant, indeterminate, reds, yellows, greens, stripes, short season, long season.
Like I said. It's a great idea, and as a novice grower, I could get really excited to be able to say "I want to grow cabbage" and have a source that breaks down the types, planting times, soil preferences, fertilizer needs, sunshine requirements, zones for individuals, pests and prevention and dozens of other things that I don't even have the experience to imagine.
If the threads were too broad.... tomatoes....it would probably be worthless because the user would have a difficult time finding exact info needed. Too narrow and even tomatoes would have several dozen separate threads.
Or am I totally missing the mark of what you had in mind?
I love it! Go for it. How big is our server?

 

[AMKuska]

I agree with Xerocles that it would be complicated, but it could also be fun. I'd love to read more about watermelons in my growing area, and to share what has worked and did not work for me. Yes there are lots of different varieties, but we could resolve this by circling back to different plants over time.

 

[baymule]

I like this idea. There are many plants in many gardens, with many varieties. It would be a great resource , especially for newbie gardeners.

 

[flowerbug]

so much depends upon climate/location/soil/etc that while general talk about plants and varieties is interesting i think there is a lot more to it than raising animals.

i'm sure i'd participate but i doubt i could commit time in leadership type projects like this - i just don't have control over my schedule at this stage of my being.

 

[so lucky]

I think it's a great idea. May be a bit of a mess trying to figure out how to present the info. I like the BYC feature of having some members write articles and allowing the other members to "rate" the helpfulness and accuracy of the article.
I also like the badges people can earn for being helpful, longevity in the forum, being an enthusiastic greeter, and having expert experience in treating sick/wounded birds

 

[seedcorn]

While I love the intent, I echo the thoughts too many situations to address. While a chicken is a chicken, tomatoes would vary from type to environment. (Chicken people I recognize it may not be that simple as I used to have different chicken breeds.)

Threads answering specific questions about a specific plant, variety, environment is still our best solution. Plus this site gets more hits......

 

[Nifty]

Fantastic discussion and thoughts, thanks!!

Ya, we don't have any illusions that we'd be able to have a thread on every plant in the world (or even every plant in a single city or town)

We just thought it would be fun to have some threads to focus on for specific varieties that are at the top of our members (and visitors) thoughts.

So, keep the discussion and ideas coming and we can proceed in a way that best matches our awesome community!

 

[TwinCitiesPanda]

I think it's a great idea as long as each post is specific. It would be nice to read a post and thread just devoted to Black Krim tomatoes for example, describing taste, growth habit, determinate/indeterminate, fruit size, avg. yield/plant, spacing suggestions, etc. I'm sure those sharing their experiences in the thread would help me decide if they are worth trying in my soil type and climate.

Yes, there would be a lot of these threads, but its not as if they all need to be done at once, or by one person. In a few years I'd love to contribute to threads for sour cherry or honeyberry varieties, once I have more experience with my new trees/bushes. Perhaps organizationally it would make sense to have extra levels to this if implemented on TEG. On BYC it's just Breed Focus Thread -> Individual Breeds. Here perhaps it would require some "drill-down" organization:
Plant Focus -> Tomatoes -> Varieties
-> Beans -> Pole Beans -> Varieties
-> Cherries -> Sweet Cherries -> Varieties

Currently the alternative to find variety specific info on these forums is to search "Black Krim" on the site search. Often what's returned are thousands of mentions in people's lists of what seeds they bought or what they are growing without nay additional information. These are really fun and inspiring posts in conversation and in-season, but can be annoying to wade through when looking for solid information years later.

 

[Nifty]

We're open to doing whatever the community thinks is best / fun. It can be SUPER high level, like "Tomatoes, Beans, Cherries" or can be really specific into varieties... or anything in between

We don't have a very ridged or specific idea of how this should be done. Mostly we wanted to take the idea Sumi did on BYC and do something similar here.... but tweaking it to anything that might work / fit better with our community.