Open Source Seed Exchange?

[William Schlegel]

Trade OSSI varieties for OSSI varieties?

[Ocimum]

There is a seed exchange website where you can list the plants you want, and the plants you have to offer. There is quite a broad range of availability, however there is the problem with the shipping: most of them are in France and Belgium.

See for example the Cucumis melo section, with a bit over 100 varieties:
http://www.semeur.fr/wiki/index.php?title=Cat%C3%A9gorie%3AMELON&gallery=1#collection

[reed]

William, I have some pretty mixed up corn carrying some genetics from Carol's Magic Manna, Cascade Ruby Gold and Cascade Cream Cap. Also a little from Joseph's Harmony grain corn is probably still in there. Those and a whole bunch of other "heirloom" stains represent about 50% and a worm resistant Mexican landrace called Zapalote Chico is the other 50%. I'm trying to push it more to a flint but have older generation seed that is more floury.

I don't know if cowpeas would grow for you but I also have a second generation mix that includes Carol's First Lady Northern Southern variety. I'm not really sure how easily cowpeas cross so if they don't Carol's would be the smaller, white seeds in the mix. Overall the grex leans toward a bushy habit but some do climb as well.

If you want some let me know in a pm. I don't really need any more seeds myself right now so a few bucks to cover postage would get you a good amount of seed.

[Adrian]

 The cow peas required a drought for flowered.
If the soil is too humid he did too foliage!
D'all occhio is mainly  butinate by the wasp!

[Cotyledon]

There is a forum called Sharetheseeds out there on the web.


 It seems like the site is intended for trading seeds for plants that are used as drugs and has been known to be rather unfriendly to scholarly people and people concerned with food plants, but it might interest some people nonetheless.

[Garrett Schantz]

I checked the page out a bit.

Seems that discussing Cannabis isn't allowed.

Discussing extraction methods isn't allowed. Nor is smuggling seed or discussing it.

Discussing psychoactive mushrooms also seems disallowed.

You need positive feedback to level up with karma.


Newer users can't do certain things or trade.

So you likely need to comment on things a bit.


And newer users probably need to send their own seed first - before others trade with them.

Users with higher karma with the trader role, probably seem more trustworthy and less likely to scam others.

https://sharetheseeds.me/forum/index.php?topic=15.0


That's their rules / what they're about.

No discussing illegal activities, no buying or selling, no trading illegal materials.


It's mostly medicinal stuff and for scholars who study them.

But a scholar also can't just show up and ask for seed or whatever else.

[Cotyledon]

I've known people who have been members of the site for over a decade and I stand by my observations regarding it.

The site links to and frequently refers to a sister site that places very strong emphasis upon extraction, but which does not allow trading of drug plants and seeds, so it has a sister site that is all about trading drug plants and seeds.

 If you follow the links at the site for advertisement (Dragibus for example) the drug emphasis becomes rather apparent as well.

At least one moderator is, historically speaking, quite unfriendly to scholars interested in plants that don't get people high. I am aware of specific cases of this, FYI.







 

[Garrett Schantz]

Most of the content on there, is actual medicinal plants.

I've seen things about Ipomoea seeds - which produce LSA. Mostly growing them and mentioning that they are technically legal to have in many places.

A sister site doing that, with drug trade is interesting. Which, that's probably just so that their other site isn't taken down. It also pushes people who want to use illegal drugs and extract them, elsewhere.

I've only skimmed through 700 threads or so as of this moment.


I've also seen Diviner's Sage mentioned in some places.

It's not illegal all across the States.



But, as shown in the rules - it's mostly for medicinal plants.

It's not for food crops.



I've seen cases of medicinal posts, being taken down because members discuss extraction.

Tinctures, alcoholic substrate, distilling - and other things are considered extraction.


They cannot be mentioned there.


That's seeminly for any plant. It says psycho active in the rules. But, I'm seeing it applied to anything.


I'd assume that some moderators get jealous that they can't post about certain things on the site, but people posting about legal things can.


They do allow for historic talk about medicinal usages for plants and things from studies.

I'd assume that people talking about making tinctures of any kind, for little known plants or things not proven to do anything, can get them in trouble.

Medicinal misinformation, being shared there.

Yeah.


The site, is mainly for trading medicinal seeds.

Actual discussions. Are less common.


I've heard of moderators there being bad eggs.

I do happen to know some people on the forum.

They type the same way as usual.

It's also not hard to reach out to people to ask if they're on the site of if they've heard of it.


Regardless, I suggested that they call out some bad eggs. Some of them are on other websites or exist elsewhere.

To my understanding, the main site administrator has been friends with many moderators and the like for quite some time, and at some point they focused mainly on psychoactive plants.

Those guys aren't admins in other places. Or in any position to delete things calling them out.

A sister site or sites, trading in illegal things or discussing them still indicates that they'd mainly prefer for that stuff not to be in share the seeds.


I won't say that there aren't drug users there. There's also seeminly non drug users.



I was mainly interested in the interspecific hybrids page and the like.

I also saw something about an old kickstarter project, which would've sent people DIY kits, which would allow people to make GMOs at home, glow in the dark DNA from bacteria which alters some genes in a plant or just adds them.


I believe it was shut down, despite reaching goals.

Regulators, you know.


Someone on there provided a link to DIY crispr kits.


There's more medicinal plants there - discussions and trade than anything.


People do exchange emails when they trade. And I'm sure that people trade whatever things, off site or after initial communications.


Again, I just made an observation.

It would be nice if people had some indicators that they were on certain sites. But I suppose some researchers don't want to it to be known that they're on that sorta site.


It's an interesting place. It lacks things that I'm mainly interested in, bit still.


Many seed trading sites, used to exist. They were shut down, usually after scammers appeared or there seemed to be legal issues.

One was for peppers, but admins can also die - or nobody wants to keep up with things.


Pretty interesting site.

[Garrett Schantz]

Dunno if I sounded rude initially.

But, I'll also mention that one user said something about how some others possibly have their own ads on the site, and pay for space.

Typical advertisers, don't want to be associated with anything scientific or drug related in any way.

They have both.


Websites with a ton of images and pages, require funding to stay up.

Traffic also drives up costs.



I'd assume that some sites, simply archive old forums and make new ones once they run out of personal server space.

Maybe some people are nice and host things for them.

[Cotyledon]

I've known people involved with both sites for over a decade now in various capacities and have some insight into them.

One can use the share the seeds site to obtain edible and medicinal seeds, this is true and is the reason I mention it. However I have also tried to be open and honest about the bias and theme that the sites entail as well.

I am not a member of either site.