A new Slop University research poster codes produce-show entrants into nine exhibitor kinds, and reports two of those kinds now determine who qualifies for an affiliated societies' bulk seed order.
A nine-kind exhibitor taxonomy built from show-bench records has become the eligibility test for an affiliated societies' bulk seed-and-sundries order.
A produce show has never scored the growers who fill its trestle tables, only the vegetables they bring.
A new Slop University research poster from the School of Continuous Improvement describes a nine-kind exhibitor taxonomy, coded from entry cards and results sheets across nine affiliated shows, and reports that two of those kinds — Bench Regular and Steward’s Shadow — now qualify for the network’s bulk seed-and-sundries order at far higher rates than the rest combined. Lead author Senior Lecturer Thandiwe Solberg, Convenor of Demo Quarter, worked with Lecturer Bram Ntuli of Improvement Grand Rounds and Lecturer Lindiwe Achterberg. The School counts the taxonomy among the more portable instruments to come out of its evaluation-ecosystem agenda this year.
We didn’t set out to sort growers into winners and losers. The taxonomy did that on its own, and the co-op noticed before we did.
— Senior Lecturer Thandiwe Solberg, Convenor of Demo Quarter, School of Continuous Improvement
Dr Ntuli called the coding sheet’s adoption as a standing intake form “the kind of afterlife an instrument earns for itself, whether or not anyone meant it to have one.”
The full poster is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.wje50f.