I think beginner gardeners would not really benefit much from your very good
idea other than to claim that they have the latest thing. I have a large
garden and a large greenhouse. My biggest problem is locating a specific
plant. Outdoor tags can get lost (carried off by curious birds or other
animals) or disintegrate. Even indoor tags can disintegrate or become
illegible. My greenhouse is filled with multiple plants of 895 different
orchids so locating 1 individual can take a lot of time. Orchids are
frequently repotted so an integrated RFID really doesn't make much sense
there. But one that can be wired to the pot or plant and transferred to
another would help tremendously. I keep track of the orchids on MS Access.
Programming an RFID from Access would be a big time saver. All the other
data on the plants is in Access so I think a wireless connection on the
handheld device would prove more beneficial than just a docking device.
My outdoor gardens have a wide variety of plants scattered in many different
beds. Again I use Access to keep track of which plants are located where
along with any other info I want to keep on them. I've used several
different programs to map the beds. I haven't decided yet on the one I like
best for this purpose. The vegetable garden is the only one where I sow
seeds directly. It's fairly simple and straight forward. I keep a diagram
for several years to remind me of the rotation or crops. Otherwise I don't
keep detailed records other than when and where the seed was purchased and
how well it germinated and produced. Generally I know what I planted where
by looking at the plants.
If you can extend your idea to pollination records, an RFID attached to a
pod or capsule would be a tremendous aid in record keeping in any field.
Many orchid capsules can take more than a year to mature. You can imagine
the problems that can happen to tags in that time. An RFID embedded in the
agar of an orchid flask would help immeasurably in ease of record keeping
and flask location there. If you can extend this to inventory management I
think you'll have a real winner.
Gary
"spirk" wrote in message
...

Hi my name is Evan and I am a design student trying to come up with a
product to help beginner to expert gardeners with the process of
growing plants, fruits in a garden or greenhouse. It would be best to
explain my idea by giving you an example of how you could use it.

The user opens up the box to find the Hand held device with a color LCD
touch screen, seeds for several different plants, earphones and location
markers with embedded RFID chips. The handheld device would also have a
docking station to connect to a computer. The idea is that when the
user starts planting fruits, flowers, ect. They would then place a
RFID in the ground right with the seed.(An RFID is a chip that stores
information you enter, and then can retrieve the information later
wirelessly.)

The user would input what plant he just put the RFID chip next to.
Now when the user ever comes back to that plant he waves his device
over the plant and up pops a history of the plant, how to take care of
it, the history of the users interaction with that plant, ect. The
device would also be able to play mp3 files, which would allow the user
to hook up to the internet and download instructional lessons, different
methods of planting, care, ect. The device could even give visual
references for the user.

This idea is just not limited to outdoor use. You could use the system
for greenhouses, or even inside the house with "smart pots." Maybe you
have smart pots that have RFID integrated chips. The main thing I want
to concentrate on is building this idea into an entire system for home
gardening.

I would really appreciate any answers to the following questions, and
any comments about my idea

What is your biggest problem with gardening and the gardening process?

What is the hardest thing to remember when gardening?

Do you document plants as they grow?

How do you remember what plants you planted?

What are the most common things you need to remember when taking care
of a garden, ie nutrition, type of fertilizer, ect.

What are the most important things you need to do before starting to
plant seeds for your garden?

Are there different ways you need to treat plants that you grow outside
then in a greenhouse?

Thanks for your time, this will really help me out.


--
spirk