How to Create An Index Seminum

How to create your Index Seminum and manage incoming orders using IrisBG  

“The more you share the seeds, the more you grow, the more the system grows, the more a community grows.”

-Edie Mukiibi, Vice President of Slow Food International

Our December Coffee Chat, was hosted by Anne-Catherine (Tine) Scheen, Curator at the Stavanger Botanic Garden (opens in a new tab) in Norway. She spoke on how to set up an Index Seminum and use the Web Store module in IrisBG.

The map below shows the locations of all the gardens and arboreta represented by everyone that registered for the Coffee Chat - home offices are not taken into consideration.

Store Module

Anne-Catherine walked us through how to set up stock items, catalogues, and orders.

She went into detail about:

• How to add items that are not accessioned or stock items that are accessioned
• The steps needed for setting up the webstore
• How you select contacts to notify about the web store
• Handling orders (updating inventory, mailing labels, packing lists)
• Generating statistics and reports

Below are some screen shots from Anne-Catherine’s presentation.

Q: Can a contact’s address be updated from a received order?

Yes. If the contact information for a garden has changed from what you have saved in IrisBG, it is possible to compare the new entry that came from the garden and update the contact information within IrisBG.

Q: Once something is listed as “Out of Stock”, how long does it take to show as “out of stock” online in the web store?

Once you make that change in the inventory, the next person ordering order will see that it is out of stock. It is good practice to check the inventory weekly instead of at the end of the season. It is also good to mark low stock items as “few”.

Q: How do gardens handle Phytosanitary Certificates?

• In the US: US Department of Agriculture (opens in a new tab)
• In Canada: Canadian Food Inspection Agency
• In the EU: European Commission on Food Safety (opens in a new tab)

Q: What was the most requested seed of 2022?

Meconopsis grandis was the most requested seed in 2022. It has been one of the top two for the past five years.

In 2019, it was the second most requested species, when Rheum alexandae was requested by one garden more than Meconopsis grandis, the other four years (i.e. 2022, 2021, 2020, 2018) it was the most requested.

Meconopsis grandis