pcplantdb

[Richard Archer <pcplantdb@juggernaut.com.au>]

At 11:57 AM -0800 6/2/04, John Schinnerer wrote:

>The query would be something like 'find all relationships for White Oak'.
>Returned would be links to plants that have an entry in the DB indicating 
>some
>observed relationship with white oak.

For the first time I find myself disagreeing with something John says.
Which is pretty amazing because I'm generally quite disagreeable :)

I think it would be only marginally useful for every plant which has
either a positive or negative relationship with White Oak to be tagged
as such in the database. Because even though that info would be useful
if I wanted to build a White Oak guild, what if I wanted a Red Oak guild?
It's most likely that all the White Oak relationships would be relevant,
but a search wouldn't return any of them.

Instead, I would think it better to define all the characteristics of
White Oak and the other plants and then run an analysis of the data to
find potential synergies.

For example:
Plant 1: fixes nitrogen, likes partial shade, shallow roots
Plant 2: loves nitrogen, full sun, deep roots.
These two plants are likely to be synergistic.

But:
Plant 1: fixes nitrogen, likes partial shade, shallow roots
Plant 2: loves nitrogen, full sun, shallow roots.
These two plants are a potentially synergistic, but their roots
may compete.

I think analysis of relationships between various plants (and animals)
needs to be run at a deeper level to be useful. We would need to work
out why those plants were synergistic (or antagonistic) and use these
findings to hone the search for synergies. So, a Guild database would
be a useful thing... but mostly as a starting point for research.

 ...R.