Tracking individual trees in Trials

individual trees in trials can be named in three different ways (see the glossary for full definitions of these names) plant location a composite descriptor for unambiguously referring to individual trees within trials across the database, which is usually referenced on a trial map the position of trees is often recorded in such a way that they can be located on a map for a particular breeding program, it is usual to implement a specific way of doing this for all or most trials two alternate ways of tracking tree position have been used in gemview trial+section+tree position a geographic plot of land in a trial is delineated and defined as a section, with numeric geographic tree positions assigned within the sections trial+plant id plant id uniquely identifies the tree position within a trial an example of this may be when individual trees are located by rows and columns across a trial and the combination of the two is used to assign plant id if the trial uses the section and tree position convention, plant id can be assigned to trees without association with any spatial map position plant code an optional, customer assigned identifier for individual trees within trials plant codes are assigned to individual trees according to rules which combine attributes of individual trees to become composite descriptors these attributes can be any of genetic entity, section, trial entry or trial, as well as any of the user defined udfs (user defined fields) (for example, replication, experimental block, column, row, tree, etc) the rules for constructing the plant codes can be trial specific, or database wide for any chosen value of a “tested as” category plant code is set up when a database is initiated, but clients can have the gementics database administrators modify this to meet requirements users can control if they wish to view plant codes or not in their settings plant id an optional customer assigned identifier for individual trees within trials for the trials where plant id is used to specify plant location for a trial, that is to reference the tree on a map, then it must uniquely identify the spatial location of each tree in the trial for the trials where 'trial+section+tree position' is used to specify plant location, trees may also have a plant id assigned in this case, plant id need not be associated with a spatial map position plant id can then be input through a data file with no constraints on its value except to be unique within a trial users can control if they wish to view plant id, or not in their settings