Using Persephone on a mobile
The advantage of flexibility. Managing dispersed collections held by many people is one example – in Sussex, a group holding a Collection are uploading images and information about the plants that they keep and track the difference in flowering time across the county. Our Plant Guardians can use Persephone to add pictures and information about their individual plants, and see information and pictures that others may have shared. A horticulture college is now using it as part of their teaching programme, allowing students to gain experience in managing collection records and mapping plants.
Looking to the future. Collection Holders can permit Plant Heritage to retain access to their records when they retire. These become an invaluable record of a lifetime of plant knowledge and a resource for future collections.
Increasing our conservation impact. The conservation team needs to know which plants are in our conservation schemes. Is the number of taxa increasing or declining? Which plants are rare and are they kept safe within collections or with Plant Guardians? Without having collection records in one searchable database, we cannot monitor our conservation work effectively.
The upgraded system means Plant Heritage has a robust plant records system that will support both collections and our conservation team in the future. With the help of a recent grant from the National Lottery, we are now embarking on a programme to work with collection holders who have not yet put records on to the system which in turn increases our conservation impact.
To find out more, see the Persephone page on our website.