the concept “accession”

Too often in the documentation you are reading you encounter the term “accession” and in no place there’s a decent explanation for it, or all explanations make no sense to you. This short article contains a description given by a user in the same situation as described, once she grabbed the concept.

New users not accustomed to the ITF2 nomenclature ask me why do they need pass through the “accession” screen while all they want is to insert a plant in the database. And what is this “accession” thing anyway?

Many discussions on the net don’t make the concept any clearer.

Our most recent new user gave an example which I’m allowed to share here.

»We got seedlings (one Planting with quantity 5) of Heliconia longa (a plant Species) from Carla Black (the Source), we named them 2007.0987 (a single unique Accession number) and we planted them all together at one Location. Now after several years, Accession 2007.0987 has not one but several Plantings at different places in our ‘Tanager’ garden, obtained vegetatively (asexually) from the first 5 plants. Plants obtained by sexual reproduction come in the database under different Accessions, where our garden is the Source.«

Anyhow, in Ghini you can add plant and accession within the same action: simply choose the “intended location” for the accession, and indicate that you want ghini to immediately add the plant at that location. By adding the “accession”, Ghini also adds the “plant”, using all the accessed plant material. Quite obviously, if you intend to split your new accession into multiple plants at distinct locations, you need to go through all the steps.