Record keeping for Dahlias

Bessie

I'm sitting here staring at my planting chart, figuring out where the latest purchased dahlias will go. Last year I made a spreadsheet of all the Dahlias I purchased/planted. I read that Katherine Albrecht uses Ancestry software to keep track of her hybridizing.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
1) What, if anything, do you use for Dahlia record keeping.
2) What functionality/software do you wish you had for record keeping?

Teddahlia

In 1983 they came out with a program called Lotus 123. Microsoft came out with Excel a few years later. We had to learn them for reports at work. It was state of the art when I did our first spreadsheet for the dahlia seedlings in about 1993. We have a file for every year from 1993 to 2022.. Losers not listed. Winners get a line entry and sometimes remarks.

blown_dry

I use Excel! I have a spreadsheet with my orders, and even use it for the planting chart. It's easy to move the images around. But, I do have to insert all the images in the first place.

Bessie

blown_dry I love seeing all your images😃, thank you. I'm excited to see what you grow!
I used Excel too last year. I'm really longing for a database so I can sort on color, type, tuber vendor, etc. I collect information on the seedlings, and although I have a dedicated notebook, it just seems so 1970's. I also have a 3 ring binder that holds all my tuber purchases.

TryingToGrow

Newbie here. This year I upped my game from 7 dahlia plants to 20 dahlia plants. I created a spreadsheet to track info about them, but I am wondering if I should be tracking more. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
Name
Number plants/tubers
Status
Height (in)
Spacing (in)
Flower size (in)
Flower type
Color
Year introduced
Purchased from

SteveM

TryingToGrow Any recommendations would be appreciated.

I would include a photo if your spreadsheet has that feature.

Bessie

TryingToGrow I like to keep track of the date planted, and if it is a saved tuber from last year, purchased tuber, or a cutting. For me it's also important to note the first bloom date, however I can easily track that by looking at the date of the first photo I have for the season. I also added a quick rating system for an important feature to me, overall vigor. I rate the lowest vigor to highest vigor, +, ++, +++.

Teddahlia

Sounds stupid but recording where each plant is located is good information especially if tags are lost(chickens love to pull out plant tags).

Bessie

Teddahlia I've had to use my site planting plan more than once to ID a Dahlia! Unfortunately this has been a slow moving year for me, and no site plan yet.

Teddahlia

Bessie: I like dahlias with lots of vigor too but the term is a bit undefined even though we both use it a lot. Probably we would have slightly different definitions. Vigor may be broken down into a whole bunch of traits and your list may be somewhat different than mine. And with all traits, too vigorous is a fault too. I tossed a Bloomquist variety for being too vigorous: too tall, a coarse looking plant, and I could have lived with that but the tuber clump weighed 40 pounds and took super effort to just get it out of the ground. Then my crates were so heavy heavy , I struggled to haul them inside. Then I struggled to wash the humongous clumps and when I got them to the dividing table the tubers were packed around the stalk so firmly that I had get out bigger tools.

Bessie

Teddahlia yes, good point. The important point here is what is pleasing to you, and what are your goals? The record keeping will keep track of the many data points that reflect the end goal. I'm my situation, my main goal is to produce hybrids that make ideal plants for home floral bouquets as well as attempt to produce desirable, productive, plants for cut flower farmers.

Teddahlia

Trait number one is also not definable. We want pretty dahlias. That is another word that defies definition. Just a day or two ago, Margaret and I declared that it is now our number one trait. Lots of ugly flowers have nice form. Now, that does not mean we are abandoning the form trait . It is more like we are lowering our form requirements if the flower is pretty. Remember pretty is not a trait listed in the American Dahlia Society classification handbook. Why would people grow dahlias if they were not pretty?

I think this one is pretty and so does Margaret. 2nd year seedling.

TryingToGrow

Thank you for all the great suggestions. I will work on incorporating them. I am also tracking my newbie fails to prevent future issues.

I am attaching images of

the google sheets I am using to track.