Diana Kulaga wrote:
All,
At our last society show last weekend, there were numbers of plants
incorrectly categorized. One upshot was 3 identical plants taking blue
ribbons (registered in three different categories). That's what we
happended to notice; no idea how many plants were actually miscategorized.
The various societies which put up displays, as well as growers and
individuals who did so, are responsible for their own registration lists,
which are then turned over to our registrars. I have no doubt that the
mistakes were honest ones - there's no percentage in doing it deliberately.
What do you guys do in your own societies to avoid that kind of problem?
Different regions have different systems for ribbon judging. In the
MidAmerica, we usually have individual entry tags for each plant, and
paste them into a folder specific to each class. That is what we use
for ribbon judging. But that is just here... I've seen it done
differently. But I usually assist with registration at the Greater
Lansing and Michiana shows, among a few others in Michigan, and this is
what we do:
One of the things we do is have some experienced judges helping with
registration. We know what the most common errors are, and can often
fix them without even looking at the plants. We always have a copy (or
two) of Wildcatt going, and we look up every plant (that isn't a
species). If a plant is registered as just the hybrid name, we will
write down the cross on the registration tag before we give them back to
the exhibitors.
So, some of the common errors that we look for.
1) Paphs, we have primary and complex hybrids in separate classes.
This is very often screwed up, but easy to correct if you know the
cross. We also have species divided into three categories, which is
easy enough to fix if you know the species.
2) Dendrobiums (on our schedule) species are broken into several
categories, and nobody ever gets them right. We have a list of which
species go in which class, and check them at registration
3) Cattleya intergenerics are often screwed up, we try our best to
check them based on the Wildcatt data.
4) For miscellaneous species, we have a list which has a
correspondence between genus and class. It is pretty easy to check
things you have never heard of.
5) For some classes I make a point of taking a few minutes before we
actually (as a team) judge the plants to make sure that things make
sense. I've been known to take all of the paph species folders (three
or four, depending on the show), and go through them before we look at
any plants. This especially at shows where I know they don't take quite
as much time at registration as we do. I'll do it even if I'm not team
captain, which has gotten me a few nasty looks...
Some of the errors that are harder to catch are colors. Last week I
did phals, and I can't count the number of plants which were entered
incorrectly. But, we try really hard to have one team do the majority
(or all) of a section of the show schedule. If we catch a mis-entry
early enough, we can move it to a later class. Always enter something
into the lowest numbered class you can, it might have a chance of
getting moved up. We very rarely go back to look at a class we have
already awarded ribbons for. Those plants are just out of luck
(although we write a note on the entry tag so that the exhibitor might
learn something from it).
In our region we have a few societies which insist on entering all
the registration information into a computer, and printing out a paper
list for each ribbon class. This is a pain in the posterior, as it is
very hard to move plants around. A better system is taping the
registration tags into a folder, then you can just pick up the tag and
paste it into another folder. Other regions probably have different
systems. When we are preparing the folders for each class, it is
important to give things a final sanity check. A little up front work
really makes the ribbon judging go more smoothly.
Rob
--
Rob's Rules:
http://www.msu.edu/~halgren
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a. See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to purchase
more orchids, obtain more credit