Perennial grain project update

[bunkie]

Jun 27, 2009 20:40:17 GMT -5 canadamike said:

....The amount of seeds is irrelevant here, some lines had way less than others.

actually michel, imo i think the number of seeds is imperative. people need to know how much room they'll need to trial these grains. so much seed equals so much room. in the past, i believe if i remember correctly, tim said there would be 100 seeds per grain.

Seeds were simply shared on an availability basis. This is not a seed sales, this is work.

i thought they cost $25 from a previous post you made?

I have a better feel of it now and will have a much better one once I come back from the european tour with Tom and Alan.

so how do we make sure we get on the list for seeds michel?

[PatrickW]

Michel,

Perhaps you could share with everyone some important details here. For example:

Who was on the list to get seeds for the trial?

Who got them and who didn't?

How many seeds did everyone get, how many got passed on to Kokopelli and how many did you take for yourself?

[bunkie]

Jun 26, 2009 23:33:23 GMT -5 grungy said:

Michel - how much seed did you guys send each person? I have tried to find out but no answer.

i just got an emal from tim, val, and he said "the idea was about 200
seeds per item to each person, more if there was more seed and fewer
people asking for it." he said if you had any questions, to please
write him at:

[e-mail]

he also said "If people want to deal direct with me that is great, that
was my original intent ....just have people come straight to me in the
future,,, after grungy sends out the seed she has or sends it back to
me... I really wanted to deal direct with each individual to make this
thing a success... that is how it will be from now on ..."

so val, can you let us know what we should do, deal with you or deal
with tim? thanks for all you're doing val!

[mnjrutherford]

I spent 13 years as a clerical assistant for a federal agency and another 5 years as a secretary for 2 different churches. If you need office assistant type stuff, data basis, letters, data compilations, stuff like that, I'd be happy to help out!

[bunkie]

morning jo! how thoughtful! i just emailed tim your post. you might drop him a note at [e-mail], that's where he gets all his mail. he's very buzy now and hasn't time to come here to the forum.

[mnjrutherford]

Thanks Bunkie! He beat me to the email and I responded just before coming to check out the forum.

It's my pleasure to offer my skills. It's a necessary task, but when you are focused on other parts of the project, there just isn't the time in a day! I've found this to be true for my own projects! Life is a puzzle and I am a piece.

[bunkie]

good work jo! ;D

[mnjrutherford]

I got another email from Tim this morning and "officially" initiated becoming a part of the project. I think it's exciting to be at the beginning of a project with such historic potential, even with the birthing pains!

[PatrickW]

If there is anyone else reading this thread interested in participating in this project, in spite of things said here to the contrary, there are more seeds available and more participants are welcome. In fact, it's starting to look like a rather small group of people currently signed up to do the trials.

To be clear, this trial is only for people serious about doing it.

If you're interested, the best place to start is probably by sending Tim an email: [e-mail]

You can discuss with Tim your garden details and location, as well as your interests and so on. Once Tim agrees he wants you to participate, you can get seeds from Val. Remember you need to pay US$25 for support costs.

I don't expect many further details of the trials will continue to be available here, so the best source of information is to contact Tim directly. Of course if you have very general questions, I can try to help too or you can also contact other people participating in the trial. There may of course also be people chatting about it here.

What I understand from Tim is in the northern hemisphere July and August are the two best months to start the trial, but in fact as long as it's warm enough to sprout seeds, the trial can be started any time. If you decide in a few months you're interested, by all means get in touch with Tim.

[canadamike]

In fact, despite what it is ''starting'' to look like there is over 100 people in these trials, only a few here, but it is fine, go back earlier in the thread to see the open invitation. We have seeds growing in a vast number of different ecosystems in many countries.
Bunkie was overlooked because I taught she was dealing directly with Tim who taught she was with us. But apart from your welcomed manifestation of interest on June 39, I unfortunately . As for Tim, he does not remember.

I am deeply sorry if you were overlooked too. But you sure are welcomed

We simply helped Tim the best we can, he was overwhelmed and did not want to deal with the recruiting of people.

Within 2 weeks we found more people than he expected, way more, enough to start worrying about seed quantities. We also found emergency funding for him and an organization with 14 research stations.

You are right, there are some left, but a very small amount in our hands compared to the beginning. And there are serious talk about long term funding, this is not the place here to divulge all these things.

It was always understood people would deal with him directly. We just could not do more because we are busy, we farm actively. We have an extremely busy schedule, often starting at dawn and ending at dusk. People will be contacted, a list of the participating ones made, but when we have time.

Right now the priority is in the fields. I only have time today because it is raining. I spoke with Tim last night and all was fine by him. He knows what I do in terms of research and understand very well that when there is a window of opportunity we will work on it, the same actually applies to him. We now only have time to call each other at night after we come back from the field.

And there won't be much to report before August /September anyway...

I am sorry if I was not here to answer posts more frequently.
Bunkie ,''shared'' did not mean free. The 25$ is to support Tim. I am glad Tim sent you and Patrick some. As for the numbers, we did not know precisely, some lines have less, seeds, some more, 200 was an approximate figure Tim came up with.


And I can't find any post saying there is no more seeds, only one saying there will be more in the fall.

[PatrickW]

Michel,

I can respect the fact you're busy now, I think most of us are. In particular needing a week or two to yourself is more than reasonable.

At the same time when it takes the efforts of Bunkie, Val, Frank, myself and possibly others to get you to even pick up the phone and tell Tim what's going on with the project, there's something very wrong.

There's also something wrong when you announce the project, ignore every effort anyone makes to tell you they are interested, remind you again they are interested, complain they haven't gotten seeds and then you tell them you're sorry but all the seeds are gone. You aren't making any friends this way. Part of running a project like this is keeping track of people who are interested, and making sure they get seeds. If you don't want to do this, you're just getting in the way.

I can also respect the fact that you were involved in Tim getting an advance payment of $1250 on his support fees, and I'm sure he appreciated this. At the same time, this amount of money is not going to cover Tim's living and working expenses for very long, and the most important thing to Tim is that his breeding project move forward and succeeds. You aren't helping him by throwing a relatively small amount of money at him and ignoring everything else. Also, you aren't the only one who can pick up the phone and call Dominique or send him an email. Other people could have arranged this with him too.

While I'm sure he might change his mind, Tim was so fed up a few days ago he declared he was never going to let you or anyone else run one of his trials again.

Just to reiterate, and make clear to everyone here, there's lot more space in the trials. There's room at the moment for at least 10-15 additional people, and enough seeds for them. Tim just confirmed this. If you or anyone else you know are interested, please get in touch with Tim. Serious inquiries only please!

[Alan]

Patrick,


The Truth of the matter is thus:

This was Tim's baby from the begining from what I understand. Mike was responsible for getting the word out about the project, Tim didn't have the time or resources to send out seed himself and neither did Mike so it was placed in the hands of other responsible and resourceful parties who I don't think ever recieved the seed to begin with.


Homegrown's stance on this subject was to simply be a place where people would be able to access the material (initially it was supposed to be directly through Tim) and where Tim could then use that information on those trials on this forum to move the project forward, time on the part of all parties involved ran short and as is witnessed a plant breeder should always find a way to handle his or her projects in a direct manner, it isn't anyones fault and there won't be any finger pointing on this message board, as someone who was involved with Michael, Tim, and Dominique I can tell you that there was confusion with all three parties involved in how this project would move forward, that's just the way it is. This project was originally supposed to go directly to Tim with the message board being the access point to information and to contact Tim directly, and while I'm not sure exactly where it went askew I don know that Tim stated directly that he was too busy to package and distribute seed, what I do know is that there will not be any finger pointing going on in this thread, all in all the plant breeder and initial distributor is the only one responsible for the way his or her material is handled, no one else.

I have immense respect for Tim and I am part of of the trial having also shared the seed Tim was kind enough to send me with Johno and some others and I can tell you you are wrong when you way the following:

I don't expect many further details of the trials will continue to be available here, so the best source of information is to contact Tim directly.

Details from the trials will be posted here. Bunkie I would like to thank you for being respectful, if you need any samples shoot me a PM. Patrick, please refrain from finger pointing and making comments about the personal business between Michael, Tim, and Dominique, It's nobodys business but theirs and it is between them, no offense but this is just as much about Tim getting his ducks in a row as it is about distribution of seed and shoddy communication between all parties.

And I'm going to say this:

I don't have time for things like this and I'm sure most of us don't wish to see personal business aired in public as such along with finger pointing, I am a farmer first and foremost, I'm not running a not for profit, and I'm not trying to make our projects work in the way that an entity like SSE does, if you have a problem with someone there is no board of directors, there is only me and my great friends that give me a hand, I will not tolerate these type of he said, she said comments, take care of your own personal business, deal directly with seedsman and breeders yourself and use the board as a resource for contacting and sharing with breeders as it was meant to be and to post relevant information on.

This site was started as a community of gardeners/farmers/plant breeders and incessant pointing of fingers does nothing to bring any of us any closer to our goals in this project or any other. If your interested in working with perinial grains please contact Tim Peters and please feel free to use this message board to update the trials.

Thanks,
Alan

[grungy]

May I please jump in here. Tim send me 4 packets of p. rye. No instructions, not how much seed was supposed to be sent, whether the money was to come to me and be forwarded to Tim, or anything. I tried to contact Tim about the matter but still haven't heard from him direct.

A couple of people have told me that they managed to get a hold of Tim and over the course of several e-mails I take it that they are suppose to send the money to Tim and I am suppose to give them a sample of about 200 seeds.

As I have had guests this past week, I have not yet mailed out these seeds but will get PatrickW and Bunkie's seeds in the mail on Monday.

I apologize for any inconvience to any and everyone, but I do NOT like operating in the dark, and being responsible for a misunderstanding.

Cheers,
Val

[bunkie]

don't forget jo's request val!

[grungy]

sorry, Jo too. Thanks Bunkie.