I glad I could put the bug in your ear about giving back, but I’m just a random nobody with no aspirations or illusions of grandeur, despite what some may think. Happy to help, but I’m by no means an authority on the subject, or really any subject.
Seems like your project’s suffering from scope creep - it keeps getting bigger and bigger. I’d normally prefer to discuss stuff like this in private, but since you tagged me, and this thread is about transparent community collaboration, here’s some unvarnished thoughts and opinions. I won’t be mean about it, tho. I ain’t like that.
It’s time to reel the thread back into something more manageable. There are too many moving pieces right now. Focus on what you can accomplish with minimal effort. Reboot the thread, perhaps in a new one. Start over with a clear direction and limited scope.
Here’s a rough hypothetical outline of what I think are the basic steps to keep a project like this on track, but don’t take my word for it - this is worth getting right with buy-in from everybody:
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Start fresh with a single open pollination F2 project of a discontinued strain. That way no skills other than growing and pollen isolation are required. It reduces the complexity of the project.
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Get 1 pack of donated F1 bodhi beans that people actually want to grow, and get 100% clear, public commitment from a donor.
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Get a legit forum member to volunteer as chucker; you’ll have to figure out what criteria are necessary to be legit. Pick a few and do a cost/benefit analysis on each based on their public personas. Pick one who brings only good vibes, we hope.
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Make sure the donor is OK with that chosen chucker, and make sure the chucker commits publicly to starting the project immediately, to sending the beans either individually or in bulk, and to sharing clones if they find anything super special.
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Put the two together in a PM, and let them manage the xfer of beans. Just make sure there’s pictures of the package on both end, make sure it’s tracked, and all that.
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Get the chucker to start a thread, promise to update it reliably - once a week or something, just like a tester growlog.
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Sit back and see how it works itself out. Nothing more that anyone can do besides the chucker fulfilling their end, if it’s made it this far. If it doesn’t, well, shit happens, and no pot seeds are so valuable that losing any single pack should be much of a loss.
In the meantime, start making contacts with other breeders and some established seed sellers to see if you can work out voluntary distribution agreements. If not, you and perhaps a few other reliable, long-time community volunteers might have to handle the shipping of the end product. Once this first project starts coming to fruition, start working on the 2nd one if it’s been good and worthwhile. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
That’s about all I got so far. Hope that’s what you were looking for.
Going forward, you should know that my participation on forums is usually limited to pics, strain grow reports, and rants. And I do very little of any it. I don’t like reading back and forth discussion. I like pics, info, and DIY projects, not random chatter and speculation. That’s just who I am. And I don’t generally reply to people because I’m usually not at a computer where I can reply. Just some food for thought to help level-set expectations about me and my participation.