Free Open Source Seed Bank

[leetdood]

The fundamental issue here is trust. If someone isn’t making money from being an open source seed bank, then they’re much more tempted to rip and run with the seeds. People are less willing to give seeds to such a central bank when they’ve been burnt by scammers in the community in the past.

The community has lots of trust but it’s based on reputation and often mutual exchanges. You’re suggesting a setup that would function based on many one-sided exchanges central to one party unfortunately and that’s difficult to develop the trust for.

[Ceilingless]

I agree. As far as ripping and running… I figure if it started with some people that already had mutual trust established. I’m sure there is someone who would be willing to act as an intermediary and accept some risk for a small fee if there was no other way to gain trust. Make a bunch of seeds and then let the rules of large numbers help us out.

You could still follow all the same precautions that are taken now. New people are trusted somehow right? Maybe you gotta give to be accepted in.

That’s the beauty of keeping it unofficial, decentralized, and unregulated. It requires trust. But isn’t that how cannabis has won the war on drugs in the first place?

Eventually it will probably be a lot less regulated and the risks will be lower. But until then, everyone could assume whatever level of risk they were comfortable with

That’s part of the beauty of this: full autonomy. If you don’t trust someone new, that’s your call. And if enough people participate, everyone could find a connection within the network where they fit

[corey]

I need more time to think about this… You need more input from the community. I totally agree with @leetdood. I think you should run this by @LemonadeJoe and see what he says. I think there would have to be some sort of new forum for this in the seed section or built into the software… I also think if something like this is going to happen there should be all strains available. New, old, in the making… people would need to be credited too. I’m just gonna take a back seat for now and see what others have have to say. Again this stuff takes time and needs to be well thought out… it’s sounds like a pretty good idea to me… Good luck with this sir! I hope you find a reasonable solution to this. If it works out pm me for crosses…

[Neb]

Ehh i think your going to find it quite impossible to make a “Open source” seed bank good luck though for it to truly be “open source” you would have to put the whole operation in a bad spot where 1 person can ruin it all.

[Donnie]

Why not just join the freakers group effort. There is a hybrid section. This would make more sense to me . You could obtain and strain you want to work with do a seed run then you have the genetics you want to use to make a hybrid or crossing . To me this would be killing two birds with one stone .

[PineTarBastard]

Another challenge is shipping through international borders. I live in the US and at least 50% of the seeds I’ve purchased from outside the US have been seized.

[leetdood]

Damn, really? By US customs?

[Qtip]

If they ship in standard mail in coin flips and hose washers they always get through. Just make sure under an ounce.

[RandomHumanoid]

They sorta did something similar with corn. Corn, Astronomy Domine Sweet (Organic) – Giving Ground Seeds

Look for polyhybrids and smash them together, then pass seeds/pollen and repeat. Put some weird stuff in there. Maybe it would make a bunch of trash. Hard to say. If you want to steer it in any certain way, you need to pick something easily identifiable. I don’t think most people will want to hold clones while doing smoke reports and all that. I’d keep it easy. Shoot for purple, or skinny leaves, or fast finishing.

I got some ogXgelatoXtangieXnewberry seeds and sprouts. I’m also thinking about getting devil cream auto from sweetseeds which is a poly. So I could mix 8 pretty easily. If someone else does the same and we mix them, what happens? Probably a big stinking pile… but ya never know.

[Ceilingless]

@corey definitey agree. Use of the forum or some free wiki would be key in tracking what everyone was doing.

@Neb ok, so it’s not exactly open source, but a mash up of that and some decentralization sprinkled in.

@PineTarBastard do you think that they would have been seized less coming from private people rather than SeedBanks that are known by Customs agents?

@RandomHumanoid Yeah! Exactly! That’s cool, I didn’t realize they did that with corn.
Yeah, there will probably be a fair amount of crap that comes out, but there could be some cool combos too!

@Donnie maybe that is the route to go! No problem with joining something that already has some steam. I just had a little bit different end goal in mind, but no reason they couldn’t work hand in hand!

[Donnie]

@Ceilingless i do not see how they couldn’t go hand and hand . Because the seeds are held by the person who provided them for the list . Like my preservation run was with arakku valley , my seeds came from our member upstate since he is who provided the seeds . So all the seeds are not held by just one person. When you do a seed run x amount goes to each freakers member who completes their agreed preservation run , either 1 long flowering sativa or 2 short flowering indices. I believe that’s how the rules are set up . You can search the freakers ball seed collective to see the rules exactly how they are said in case I worded it wrong .

[Ceilingless]

I’ll definitely give the rules a look! Thanks @Donnie

[Donnie]

You could probably hit up @Guitarzan also

[RandomHumanoid]

Maybe skunk smell would be worth doing. So many people talk about the good skunk in the old days. Also, something easy for people to spot. Just pass the seeds from the skunkiest female.

To be open source, your want a new model. Something like, give all participants a number and some seeds. They grow them out, and pollenate. Pass some seeds from your skunkiest female to the person with the number above you. Maybe even hold your pollen at that point for the next round. That way nobody holds all the seeds, and if anyone drops out or disappears, you just remove or replace them.

[RandomHumanoid]

if mixing the most varieties possible equally, you might even want to do a bracket system kinda deal. But then it would end eventually.

I think a big mix would be cool, but mostly only if there were lots of old landrace stuff mixed in heavily. Some 100% indicas and sativas, and preferably zero cookie genes.

[Guitarzan]

@Ceilingless

I’ll definitely give the rules a look! Thanks @Donnie

Those rules are gonna change for next year. I don’t have it all straight yet, but one of the things that’s settled is there’s no more affiliates, or probation or any of that. That shit was far too involved, and the solution was simple. To join the Freaker’s Ball in 2022, you only need one thing, the “Overgrower” badge. You get that by completing a seed run for the Co-Op.

The criteria for a Co-Op run is, the strain has to either be discontinued, a “building block” strain that everyone has for sale, like Northern Lights or Durban Poison, or an old black market/heirloom/landrace. You can also run one If permission is given by the breeder. You can run your own strain, or there’s a thread here: Strain Donations and Breeder Match Ups for Preserving The title says it all.

I’ve been encouraging people who’ve expressed an interest in joining the FBSC to get started on a Co-Op run. The badge idea wasn’t mine, but the first thing I thought when I heard it was, “damn, I wish I’d thought of that”. In my opinion, it’s a win-win for everybody.

[Ceilingless]

Good to know. I’ll take a look at that list and see what there is. I might have access to something cool through my network too… but I won’t count my chickens before they hatch.

Thanks for everyone’s input! It’s been great to see all the responses and hear what everybody’s concerns are. Definitely not a finished idea so I’ll take all of that into my future iterations. It’s not dead yet!

But from what everyone is saying I think the best place to get started is with the co-op and freakers.

[khaoohs]

Bravo on making that a requirement, it can only lead to more reproductions and preservations. Win/win for everyone involved. The requirements for 2x runs / year are still standing to remain a member?

[Guitarzan]

@khaoohs

The requirements for 2x runs / year are still standing to remain a member?

I don’t know about that one yet. It’s made it harder to keep up with whose doing what in terms of runs. It was originally put in to help speed up the preservations by providing an incentive to do more than one run per year, which is good.

We knew this first year would be a trial run to let us gauge the interest, and to see which rules were overkill. Like the whole probation thing, and the membership stuff. Hopefully we’ll get better at it.