Tim likes the sound of Plants Map, but thinks we need a different approach to germplasm evaluation:
We are thinking a lot about this sort of platform at Seed Savers Exchange. Gardeners need better tools to learn what grows well in their area. In this day and age, there are so many models for citizen science projects like that… we just need the funding and a reliable coding partner to make one definitive site for data collection and dissemination. Such a tool would be very useful for breeders and genebanks too looking to crowd source the acts of assessing lines and identifying novel traits — but it would require breeders to screen in a different manner, that being they would need to ask simpler questions and be more open to qualitative data.