SSE 2013 Yearbook Tomato Listing

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by DonnaMarieNJ

If I paid to be a member of SSE, would I then be a "listed" member?

No, you only become a listed member by actually listing varieties in the YEarbook.

DM, did you notice that I altered my most recent post ASAP b'c I was referring to a wrong thread, initially, which has nothing to do with your question in this post, though.

As I posted above, have you gone to the seed savers site, and I gave it above, to read about membership and what goes with it? I haven't read it recently but it used to distinguish between listed and unlisted members, but that's already been done in this thread and the thread I started as to HAS, LQ and MR.

Carolyn

[DonnaMarieNJ]

Yes, I saw that spreadsheet / pdf (BTW, thanks). That is what got me started. I now want about 50 (!!) off that list and, of course, I have to get it down to a much more reasonable number (like 5 or 10). Time to do some research as most of the tomatoes listed are not familiar to me. I had NO IDEA what was in the SSE book.

However, it was my understanding that the varieties listed in the yearbook were not generally offered in public catalogs/websites (like TGS, for instance). But I saw Gold Medal and numerous others listed in the link provided above that I can get from places like TGS. So, I am a bit confused.

In the past, I have purchased from the public SSE website for both seeds and plants.

But, no need to explain it here - I'll call them to ask my questions.

Thanks!

[amideutch]

However, it was my understanding that the varieties listed in the yearbook were not generally offered in public catalogs/websites (like TGS, for instance). But I saw Gold Medal and numerous others listed in the link provided above that I can get from places like TGS. So, I am a bit confused.

There are listed members that are also seed sellers and listed members that will donate seeds from listed varieties to seed seller's (primarily to the smaller ones) which you will find in the (Seed & Plant Sources forum). So some of the listed varieties are commercially available and non members would never know that unless they went to tatiana's tomato info base and checked the history of the variety if she has it listed or have seen the SSE listing as you have posted here. This is the reason I posted the listing so you can see what's going on the other side of the fence and the valuable contributions some of these members have made to the introduction of newly discovered Heirloom/OP varieties and there perpetuation. In fact a lot of these commercially available Heirloom varieties were introduced by SSE listed members active and retired.

Ami

[Douglas_OW]

Originally Posted by DonnaMarieNJ

This is my first year saving seed and I wouldn't want to send the seeds out to anyone until I check them first. And I don't bag - at least not yet. One step at a time

So that means I couldn't purchase any seeds with "MR?"

According to the official policy of SSE, no, as an unlisted member you cannot request seeds categorized MR. But since every transaction is arranged between individuals*, you can always ask the lister anyway.

Note: Many varieties are listed in the YB by SSE (the organization) and I wouldn't count on them waiving their own rules.

Not that I have interest in any MR seeds right now, just curious. I am completely in the dark about SSE.

I think that SSE does itself a real disservice in the way that it presents the whole YB program to the public. The descriptions and other informnation available from their web site leave much to be desired. I really could not appreciate what it is all about, and the scope of the program, until I joined and received the YB.

Does SSE give a free trial so one can check out the website before purchasing a membership?

New this year, actually within the past week, SSE launched a new and improved on-line editon of the YB. Anyone can go to it and browse the selections available in the current yearbook, see descriptions, and many are accompanied by photos. Non-members that are not logged-in to the site can see the codes of the listing members (ie. NY MA C), but they don't have access to the contact information needed to request seeds from whoever that person might happen to be.

You can take a look at it here:

https://exchange.seedsavers.org/catalog/index.aspx

Jim

[carolyn137]

According to the official policy of SSE, no, as an unlisted member you cannot request seeds categorized MR. But since every transaction is arranged between individuals*, you can always ask the lister anyway.

.... the above posted by Jim.

Jim, I can't totally agree with what you said as to asking a lister if they are willing to trade seeds.

That goes against the whole purpose of what the Yearbook was devised to do for it was never set up for trades.

Now you know I'm a shy, passive person, NOT, ,but I have NEVER asked anyone I don't know if they would trade seeds and nor have my other close SSE friends.

As I said above, it's only after many years of developing friendships that trades can be arranged between those friends, IMO, and in my case it was someone asking me, of those friends, not the reverse.

Only twice have I asked a close friend for some seeds that someone in Euope wanted b'c conventional places did not ship there for the specific varieties wanted. But I know of several situations where one person gets a membership and then his or her friends request seeds via that oneperson. I HATE that, I really do. SSE relies on membership costs and cost of the seed from their listings in the Public catalog as well as their many listings in the YEarbook to help defray costs at SSE itself.

And while someone mentioned either in this thread or the other SSE thread, if it were me I'd check out varieties I wanted from the YEarbook at Tania's database b'c most of the time the seed costs for the seed places she lists for a specific variety are much less expensive than the Suggested SSE prices, And it's already been mentioned that listers can set their own request prices.

Additionally, again IMO, the Yearbook is for folks whohave grown a lot of varieties already andknow how to rogueout wring plants, see below, and can look for newlistings, or listings that interest them where there isno seed source at all per Tania's data base.

If I decide to list for 2014, and I haven't yet, one of the varieties is Giroc, not listed by Tania, my seeds from Geza in Hungary, who is not an SSE member but posts at almost every message site I know of with his listof varieties, looking for trades. Thankfully I'dcopied down the basic traits when hesentme the seeds.

I think that more folks should realize that the BIG majority of folks listing tomato varieties, for instance, are amateurs and not commercial folks and I say that b'c I would hope that most commercial places would have higher standards for seed purity than do the majority of SSE listers. Which is why I said that I prefer to see folks join who have already grown lots of varieties so they know how to rogue out wrong plants, check epidermis colors when in doubt about whether a fruit is red or pink, etc.

Carolyn

[Douglas_OW]

Carolyn,

I was not trying to encourage non-SSE members to solicit, buy, sell, trade or borrow seeds from the SSE YB listers. I agree that listers in the YB should only be expected to sell seeds to other SSE members. I was just trying to clarify the MR code and rules.

I tried to correct my earlier misstatement in this thread when I incorrectly used the word Trade when I clearly should have said Buy.

As someone else pointed out earlier, if a MR lister truly wants to see a variety preserved and become more widely distributed, he may offer it to other catalogs or venues. He may even consider selling it to a non-listed SSE member, if he feels that there is not a good demand for his offering. He might even change, in the online YB, the category from MR to HAS to encourage more sales of that variety.

I should probably step out of this discussion and leave it to other folks, like you, who have much better understanding and experience with SSE and the whole YB process.


Jim

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Douglas_OW

Carolyn,

I was not trying to encourage non-SSE members to solicit, buy, sell, trade or borrow seeds from the SSE YB listers. I agree that listers in the YB should only be expected to sell seeds to other SSE members. I was just trying to clarify the MR code and rules.

I tried to correct my earlier misstatement in this thread when I incorrectly used the word Trade when I clearly should have said Buy.

As someone else pointed out earlier, if a MR lister truly wants to see a variety preserved and become more widely distributed, he may offer it to other catalogs or venues. He may even consider selling it to a non-listed SSE member, if he feels that there is not a good demand for his offering. He might even change, in the online YB, the category from MR to HAS to encourage more sales of that variety.

I should probably step out of this discussion and leave it to other folks, like you, who have much better understanding and experience with SSE and the whole YB process.


Jim

Jim, I don't sit here and wait for answers, I just happen to be taking a break from tennis watching.

I think the very few who list MR varieties wouldn't be sending seeds for trial to seed sites b'c they wouldn't know the owners of seed sites, as some do, myself included. I have offered to send some varieties to a few others who felt that if they did it their seeds might be overlooked but if I did it it might carry more weight b'c the seed owners I know,know me personally and I've sent them my own new varieties for trial before.

I offered to do that for Tom Galluci for Prue and am now going to do it for Sam,from MO,for his Sweet Ozark Orange, which was offered in the experimental section of my seed offer this past Jan, but not with that new name. And there are others I can't remember right now.

How long have you been an SSE member,either listed or unlisted? Just curious.

There's absolutely no reason for you to step out of this discussion,the more the merrier as I see it.

Carolyn, who hears Rafa Nadal ( tennis) calling her right now.

[Douglas_OW]

Carolyn,

I have been a member of SSE for 3 or 4 years. I've never been a listed member. In that time, I have purchased seeds once, from one member.

You are right that very few tomato varieties are listed as MR. In the 2013 Yearbook, there were 4,768 total tomato listings, not all unique. The total is somewhat inflated by the fact that listers input their own information, resulting in alternate spellings and color designations for what is probably a single variety.

Of the 4,768 tomato listings, 4,456 were listed as HAS (available for purchase by any SSE member), 290 were listed as LQ (limited quantity, available only to listed SSE members), 21 as MR (Available only to Listed SSE members and must be Re-Offer), and 1 as SO (??).

Another interesting statistic is the number of tomato varieties listed for sale in the YB by SSE itself (the organization) - 848 (HAS), we'll assume all unique. I'm a little puzzled as to why SSE doesn't offer more of these varieties in the Public Catalog. I know that they did offer some additional, less common ones in the 2013 Public Catalog. If their strategy is to entice new members to pony up $40 and join SSE by teasing a glimpse of what they might gain access to, I think that they are working on hope, and, in my limited life experience, Hope is not a Plan.

Jim

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Douglas_OW

Carolyn,

I have been a member of SSE for 3 or 4 years. I've never been a listed member. In that time, I have purchased seeds once, from one member.

You are right that very few tomato varieties are listed as MR. In the 2013 Yearbook, there were 4,768 total tomato listings, not all unique. The total is somewhat inflated by the fact that listers input their own information, resulting in alternate spellings and color designations for what is probably a single variety.

Of the 4,768 tomato listings, 4,456 were listed as HAS (available for purchase by any SSE member), 290 were listed as LQ (limited quantity, available only to listed SSE members), 21 as MR (Available only to Listed SSE members and must be Re-Offer), and 1 as SO (??).

Another interesting statistic is the number of tomato varieties listed for sale in the YB by SSE itself (the organization) - 848 (HAS), we'll assume all unique. I'm a little puzzled as to why SSE doesn't offer more of these varieties in the Public Catalog. I know that they did offer some additional, less common ones in the 2013 Public Catalog. If their strategy is to entice new members to pony up $40 and join SSE by teasing a glimpse of what they might gain access to, I think that they are working on hope, and, in my limited life experience, Hope is not a Plan.

Jim

Good grief, it looks like you went through the tomato section and actually counted HAS, LQ and MR ones. More power to you.

About the listings of SSE itself and what is unique. I'd have to say, without sitting down and looking at all of them that most are not unique.

Let me explain.

When their computer sees that a variety that was once listed and then not relisted for a period of time, they yank the seeds of that variety from the seed bank and reoffer it.I know that in regard to several of my own varieties has happened.

I doubt, but can't confirm, that few of the SSE listings would be new ones from the seed bank.Remember that all are there b'c for many years it's the listed members that were asked to send seeds back to them for any new ones they listed. Also, SSE members,listed or unlisted, have no access to what's in the seed bank. And Iwas one of quite a few who thought that offering some of those seed bank ones, that you referred to above, to anyone in that Public Catalog,did not sit well at all .

Also, as you mentioned above, some varieties are misspelled, etc, and their computers will pick up that and then the seeds are taken fromthe seed bank and reoffered. I had to laugh one time b'c they did that and then the correctly spelled one was right under it as a relisting.

I know one person who deliberately makes subtle changes in spellings of varieties, but in that case methinks he's trying to beat out individuals A and B and C in terms of total listings, so doing that ups his total listings.

Carolyn

[Douglas_OW]

Carolyn,

I didn’t count them myself; that’s what Excel was invented for. Makes it very easy to get a grasp on who’s got what, or to sort multiple characteristics within a database.

When I refer to unique varieties listed by SSE, I mean to say that they probably will not list both Brandywine, Yellow and Yellow Brandywine. But, a member may list one and SSE may still list the other. But within SSE’s own listing, I think that they limit duplications, for the most part. I believe part of SSE’s push to assign Accession numbers to the varieties might be to cut down on multiple listings and to tidy things up a bit.

As far as access to seed bank stores is concerned, that is a philosophical, political, financial and personal perspective issue, so well, OK. Personally, I see little value in seeds languishing in a vault of a defunct organization. And without some sort of reliable revenue stream, no organization can continue on indefinitely.

Jim

[amideutch]

I went to the NEW online yearbook/catalog and it is the most un-user friendly listing I have seen for the listed members and all I can say is thank god we still have the paper yearbook.

Somebody either did not know what they were doing or had to do it intentionally. The listings are not listed so you can select a alpha group and you can only list 100 varieties max per page. So you have to start at "A" and go through all the listings to get to "M" or start at "Z" and go back. You cannot search individual listed members to see what there listings are as before. If you know the variety name you can do a search and if listed it will come up.

I think the intent of the new listing format is commercial since it is available for all to see which is a good thing but they should have left the old format for the Members instead of trying to combine the two.

Ami

[Douglas_OW]

Ami,

I agree, the "new and improved" online YB is anything but. SSE had been promising an improved online YB for several years. I can't accept that this is the best that they could do. I guess that you and I had the same idea about the old YB format. It had lots of data, but lousy information. Excel is a great way to make it useful.

At one point, I emailed SSE and asked to get a copy of the sql database that drives the tomato section of the YB. They politely ignored me. I didn't bother following up since I didn't really believe that they wanted to give up any info. If I could have gotten that sql file, it would have been a nice little lunchtime project to convert it into an awesome Excel file or web page, listing every variety ever listed in the online YB. I have a few colleagues in my office that routinely handle jobs like that, and this would be about 8-12 volunteer man hours, at most.

As for the paper YB- well, its something. Here's hoping that it isn't new and improved for 2014.

Jim

[Doug9345]

I've never really thought that the old YB was that well done. If you did a search and it showed what you where looking for the you were good. If it didn't then the variety might be there but the search wasn't picking it up. It was also slower than slow to respond to anything.

The paper version to e laid out differently. As an example tomatoes got scattered between red and pink and could be hard to find if you didn't know which the were. It would e much more useful if there where indices that where sorted in various ways. It would add a few pages but would be much more useful.

What kind of order the new one in eats me. I looks like it's random within the first letter.

The sad part is that dynamic generated web pages aren't new and it shouldn't be that hard to make it a lot more friendly.