Anyone else just getting a placeholder page for scion exchange? Was about to join but looks like the site must be down or server software being upgraded?
Edit: looks like it only works if you type the “www.” at the beginning. @fruit-enthusiast you probably should reconfigure the server so it works with or without the www. prefix.
I updated my post to reflect that change. I believe it worked in the previous link a few posts up before when I tried it, maybe something funky is going on. Regardless, I’m excited about it!
@fruit-enthusiast I’d also second the vote to add a catch-all for “Tropical” and “Misc” because now that I’m setting up my account, none of my “Haves” are in any of the categories listed.
It does work without the “www” prefix. There was a minor outage and that’s what Heroku displays when the site is down. It’s back up and running again.
I would actually lean towards setting up a category for American persimmon, Asian persimmon, jujube, mulberry, and a catch all for hybrids such as hybrid persimmons, pluots, etc. There could also be a section for cuttings of things like gooseberries, currants, honeyberries etc but that is a big ask for a hobby site!
I’ll cast the second vote on Persimmons.
I’m definitely open to suggestions. The categories are a little harder to add the way I set up my site. I’m thinking about adding:
Not sure how/if people trade cane berries. Do you send whole plants or can you root a cane?
As for blueberries, I’ve seen plenty of videos where people root both green and woody cuttings, but I’ve tried on several occasions without a hint of success.
There’s still a ton I don’t know so I’ll rely on suggestions from the community as I build out the site.
I was focusing on refining the database entries for apples: Adding pictures and descriptions, deleting entries that I can’t find information on, etc. But there’s been enough interest of late in adding more categories to justify pausing that endeavor and shifting focus before the growing season is over.
So… I’ll shoot for the additional categories by next week or the week after, but I’ll want people to send me lists of cultivars within the categories (Please include descriptions).
I just signed up at scion-exchange.com and it seems like a great site to go hand in hand with this one. Lota of networking opportunities.
Welcome aboard! Glad to see you here. I really hope your site takes off, it seems there is a lot of potential there!
Thanks for the site. I might be able to trade next year.Most things that I do have won’t have enough material this year for more than local trades, or rooting extra for myself.
Is there a way to send you a bunch of info at once? For instance, I will get a list together of Elmer Swenson grapes since I had to add Brianna, but it’s a PITA to add one at a time through the site.
Hi franc,
I definitely agree that it’s a pain to go through and request multiple cultivars one at a time. It’s not often that I get a request to add a whole bunch, but if you contact me through the site… Just send a message under Miscellaneous and mention that you want to sent me a list… I’ll give you my email and you can send over a list and I can work them in there.
Thanks.
@fruit-enthusiast I’m glad I’ve found you again and can promote this project. I talked to another guy maybe 3 or 4 years ago that was working on a similar project, but I’ve lost track of him too. I will try to send a bunch of people to the site.
Scion trading definitely needs easier ways to find both varieties and people, which I think is what you are trying to do. I think one thing that could prove very useful is being able to add comments on varieties, so that growers can put in their experience. Orange Pippin has a function like that, so another option would be to link up with them for that function. But there are so many varieties of apples and with a lot of people planting seed now, there will be more and more new seedlings. I’ll send info on my seedlings and some other stuff you should have. There are a lot of cultivars out there to add and add info on. Just adding the apples currently in existence would be massive. It would also be an insane amount of stuff to scroll and browse through. Hopefully you can get some help with that stuff in the future using volunteer administrators or something.
Thanks for putting in the effort, I think what I can do now mostly is send bodies and encourage them to use them site. I’ll think about what else I could do to promote it.
You must have been reading my mind. I’m about to push out a new release soon with a few minor upgrades, but I was thinking about sending out a “call to arms” to see if anyone currently using the site might be interested in doing some admin work, and maybe someone out there could do some tech work too. It’s certainly worth a shot, because as you know, there’s a ton of cultivars out there and it’s a daunting task to go through them all by yourself.
I wonder if the person you talked to 3 or 4 years ago is the same person I talked to just before starting this project. He told me he had started a similar project, but “ran out of free hours”. He then took down his site and scrubbed the project.
The same thing happened to me as well at the beginning of the project. I ran out of free hours on AWS, so I shifted gears and moved to Heroku. I won’t bore you with the tech end of things, but I’m excited for this project to grow.
Thanks for your contribution.
I would imagine you will run into all sorts of unforseen problems to solve, related to usability and data base stuff. I suppose all these kinds of digital endeavors are like that and gradually evolve or go through major shifts. I’ll do what I can to send people. I’ll bet your best admins will be enthusiastic, budding (ha ha) amateurs. There are a lot of great people in this subculture and more coming in all the time.
That will be great. I hope it is easier for you on the back end to add from a spreadsheet of cultivars. I have been keeping a list of potentials,so I have info on a lot. I likely would not use them at my locations, but am happy to have them as easily tradable on your site.
A spreadsheet would work just fine and would be appreciated.
Alright guys, this is a friendly bump to fill up those cultivars! I am still slowly working on the list of pawpaws to send to @fruit-enthusiast and am planning to send my collected knowledge this weekend. I know it’s getting to be that busy planting season but let’s try to get jujube, persimmon, che, mulberry etc added to the scion exchange! It will benefit us all in the long run to have another tool in the tool box, and Joshua is working hard to build something cool for posterity.
I wanted to bump this up again. I wish I had the knowledge to contribute to adding a persimmon section. Hopefully some of the knowledgeable persimmon guys on here will see the discussion on http://www.scion-exchange.com & be willing to help out. I think the site could become a great tool. I would use it if there were persimmons on there.
