Collection holders
David Fenwick (Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:55:05 PDT)

Roland,
There's already a well established National Collections Scheme in France
called the CCVS, they have been going quite some time.
http://www.ccvs-france.org/ .

Mike, the problem in setting up any collection scheme is with who sets the
rules, and what the rules will be, in setting standards and maintaining
them; e.g. in the UK we don't have what is called 'Display Collections' yet
to my knowledge, a grower may be incredibly experienced in growing a genus,
have one of the best collections of any genus, but may not satisfy the
criterior set by the scheme. Schemes are also largely run by volunteers, and
plant knowledge and interpretation of scheme rules is quite a problem; and
this would be especially difficult in larger countries. For the US you'd
probably have to look another similarly large country, and say at the
Australian model, GPCAA http://gpcaa.typepad.com/settings/

There's also the fact that many people will go for collection status for
shear cudos, and collect for collectings sake, or as in a few cases in the
UK use collection status just for marketing purposes, for their nursery
etc.; this latter point could be a huge problem in an economic climate such
as this. The question then is how do you separate the nurseries; from those
out for making money from their ''collections'', from those totally
dedicated nurserymen who have been growing and researching for years and who
are more interested in the plants and have many years experience. The UK is
regarded as having one of the best national collection schemes, however it
is still far from perfect in my opinion, and getting collection status is
probably far too easy ! It's a minefield !!!

Sometimes it is just best to record and report those who share an interest
who want to share that interest with others and I can see the PBS doing this
very well indeed.

Although the other point that should run alongside this tread is that
there's a lot of experience within and outside the PBS, and experienced
people who don't have collections, don't want or cannot have collections.
Shouldn't we also be talking about the value of a referee scheme as well !

make sure that a collection holder gets first crack at a rare species when
seed of it becomes available, on the assumption that they'll have the best
chance of propagating it successfully and sharing it with others.

Very well put !!! This should happen, and as you say should be a priority.
However in my experience, very rarely are collection holders offered
anything, despite how experienced and how well known they are; and most
collection holders dedicate a lot of time to adding acquisitions themselves;
which mostly involves some form of exchange in material. To be honest you're
probably better off making friends with very generous people, than expect
this to happen. LOL.

Best Wishes,
Dave (Penzance, Cornwall, UK)