Source: AERULEAN PLANT IDENTIFICATION SYSTEMS, INC. submitted to
BREAKING THE INFORMATION BOTTLENECKS IN RETAIL PLANT SALES
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
EXTENDED
Funding Source
SMALL BUSINESS GRANT
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
0210156
Grant No.
2007-33610-17960
Project No.
CALK-2007-00193
Proposal No.
2007-00193
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
8.9
Project Start Date
Jun 1, 2007
Project End Date
Jan 31, 2009
Grant Year
2007
Project Director
Dunlap, S. C.
Recipient Organization
AERULEAN PLANT IDENTIFICATION SYSTEMS, INC.
220 CHESTER STREET
MENLO PARK,CA 94025
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The horticultural industry has long suffered from a lack of adequate informational resources to manage the identification and selection of the various species in cultivation. This proposal covers expansion of Aerulean's tools specifically for the benefit of the retail plant sales industry. The work includes: - database development to cover plants for sale, - refinements to and testing of Aerulean's plant selection tools aimed specifically at customers and staff of retail nurseries, - investigation of the retail plant sales supply chain and information flow to identify barriers that exist to business growth and ways in which Aerulean informational tools can eliminate these barriers. The primary focus will be on the business as practiced by retail nurseries which continue to have the largest market share with a goal of understanding why this market segment has been stagnating and how to rejuvenate it with better informational tools. We expect to create demand for more plant species from better-informed consumers, an interest in offering more plant species by retailers, and expanded opportunities for growers to provide more plant species.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
2060599208050%
6040599208050%
Knowledge Area
604 - Marketing and Distribution Practices; 206 - Basic Plant Biology;

Subject Of Investigation
0599 - Recreational resources, general/other;

Field Of Science
2080 - Mathematics and computer sciences;
Goals / Objectives
1. Develop database content for a selection of Zone 9 cultivated plants as carried by large retail nurseries, including horticultural, botanical, and image data. 2. Identify suppliers (growers) of these plants, or at least those which distribute in California. 3. Test the usability and utility of Aerulean selection and identification tools on these plants with several discrete user populations such as nursery staff and customers, experienced horticulturalists and average homeowners. 4. Investigate the economics of the retail plant business as currently practiced (again with an emphasis on California). Identify barriers to the sale of larger numbers of species and species from smaller specialty growers. 5. Determine where Aerulean plant selection and identification tools would be most valuable in modernizing the supply chain for the retail plant industry and how best to "tax" the supply chain so that (1) Aerulean can obtain revenue, (2) retailers and growers both benefit from improved business practices, increased revenue and reduced wastage, and (3) retailers and growers can see immediate benefit of any services or tools for which they are paying.
Project Methods
The proposed work plan will extend the database of plants accessible with Aerulean tools to include roughly 2000 plants currently sold in retail nurseries for planting in the northern California portion of Zone 9. We will review the inventory listings from selected retailers plus botanical data and obtain new photographs. We will complete this compilation with the aid of our botanical and retail advisors and partners, particularly focusing on the overlap between published resources and wholesale inventories to document discrepancies that may exist between the published description of a plant and the plant being sold by the retailer. We will implement extensive selection criteria for all of these plants into an Aerulean selection tool and choose a subset for which we will develop easy-to-use identification keys taking advantage of Aerulean's apical trait cluster approach to identification. We will then carry out an extensive usability test plan including several discrete studies from vetting the horticultural information to testing the ability of novice plant customers to make sensible selections and correct identifications. These tests will be conducted according to standard usability test protocols. Refinements and corrections of the user interface and database will be implemented periodically as problems are identified. The value of our tools to various user populations will be assessed. Some users who have experience with existing tools will be asked to compare them to Aerulean tools. Test populations will include graduates of the San Mateo County Cooperative Extension Service Master Gardener program, members of the San Francisco Cactus and Succulent Society, as well as staff and customers of Wegman's Nursery in Redwood City, California. We will also continue a series of interviews we have been conducting with various retail nursery businessmen and plant wholesalers and growers to document the information flow that exists in various organizations at present. We will develop strategies for changing the way this process works (or doesn't work) by a combination of education and improved information flow. We expect to be able to dramatically improve the flow of supply and demand information between growers and retailers, as well as facilitate the ability of individual retailers to use more suppliers. We are aiming for a role in the retail plant business that can provide significant revenue to Aerulean in the long term. An important task is thus to identify revenue-making opportunities for Aerulean that can result from our facilitation of this revolution in the retail plant business. We will consider the relative merits of various approaches to selling or leasing our software tools, selling leads or advertising and taking commissions on generated sales (either by the grower, retailer or both). Our goal will be to develop a win-win-win-win situation for Aerulean, the growers, the retailers, and the end-users.

Progress 06/01/07 to 01/31/08

Outputs
OUTPUTS: Activities included: 1. Creating, conducting and analyzing surveys of master gardeners, nursery retailers, and nursery wholesale growers. 2. developing a greater understanding of the horticultural industry including sales processes, inventory management, product development. 3. evaluating the needs of the consumer against the products and services provided by the horticulture industry. 4. developing a greater understanding of the text and image data requirements needed to create a consumer plant selection and identification tool. 5. Soliciting a review of the technical prototype selection tool from a select group of master gardeners, nursery retailers, and nursery wholesale growers. Products included: Developing a technical prototype selection tool which included: 1. new fundamental or applied knowledge 2. construction of two databases (derived from horticultural texts and the collection and data extraction of several thousand plant images) 3. developing systems and software for individuals to selection and identify plant species and acquire information about plant species. Dissemination: Reaching out to master gardeners, nursery retailers, and nursery wholesale growers to make them aware of our plant selection software advances, to encourage their participation, and help us change the current conditions. No events or services were completed during the reporting period. PARTICIPANTS: Susan Dunlap (Co-PI) collected images and extracted image data, compiled text data from all know horticultural resources, managed and filed administrative reports, and compiled and compressed the software menu. In addition, Ms. Dunlap co-developed the industry surveys, made arrangements to distribute them, contacted industry suppliers to conduct live surveys, conducted live surveys, and contributed to the analysis of the surveys. Dr. Dreyfuss (Co-PI) refined the database structure, developed technical tools, engineered the software, developed advanced strategies to speed up the software performance, assisted in the development of the user interface, and assisted in the compilation and compression of the software menu. In addition, Dr. Dreyfuss co-developed the industry surveys, made arrangements to distribute them, conducted live surveys, and contributed to the analysis of the surveys. David Cockerill assisted in the development of the user interface, assisted in the compilation and compression of the software menu, developed techniques and strategies to manage the image data, and developed processes to compress and tag the image data. Members and staff of the San Francisco and San Mateo County Master Gardener program (UC Cooperative Extension) helped coordinate the distribution of our on-line consumer survey. Many members took the survey. Professional botanists Ernesto Sandoval and Brian Kemble provided a professional review of our software menu. TARGET AUDIENCES: Plant consumers and the horticulture sector will be served by this project. Our efforts will deliver science-based knowledge to people through informal educational programs and web resources. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: There were no major changes in approach.

Impacts
Our knowledge of the horticulture industry changed as we developed an understanding of the vast data gaps in the horticulture literature that fundamentally hamper the development of consumer friendly selection tools, and changed again as we juxtaposed this knowledge against our analysis of the industry surveys we conducted. The data knowledge developed from our compilation and study of novel images and image data, text data compiled from existing literature, and grower product lists. Because of our change in knowledge, we changed our actions, and adopted new techniques and methods to achieve primary project goals: develop a prototype consumer plant selection tool and acquire input from a cross-section of potential users. Faced with vast text data gaps, we developed strategies to fill in data from images, and to develop a database of tagged images of a large variety of plant traits. Additionally, this knowledge contributed to the construction of the software menu. We vastly expanded the selection criterion to 10 times that is typically available. Response to the image database made this expansion possible. Changes in actions: The image data gave us a new base of knowledge to insert into the consumer selection tool. Extracting this data improved the results and helped achieve the project goals. Survey activities and analysis also prompted us to change our business strategies and policies. We adjusted our plans to create software tools to serve the suppliers, choosing to focus instead on consumer facing plant selection tools. Change in conditions: As a consequence of conducting surveys, we developed additional human resources - expanding our contacts in important ways. As a consequence of developing software and databases, we developed improved information resources.

Publications

  • No publications reported this period