Compilation rules

General rules for compilation and updating

Material to be included in the database

It was decided to include in the database only the clones that are propagated in national collections.
Three main types of clones should be included:

• clones collected on the national territory
• clones used as parents in controlled crosses: it is important to include the parents of the clones included in the database even if the parents are not currently present in stool-beds (in this case specify "none" in "Type of maintenance"), so as to have some information about the origin of the clones obtained by open-pollination or from artificial crossing
• clones received from other countries if the original name is known.

Type of sample originally collected
Although, as already specified, only clones must be included in the database, two different types of samples might have been originally collected: cuttings, if the clone derives from vegetative propagation of a spontaneous tree, or seed if the clone derives from seed collected from a spontaneous tree or from artificial crosses. It is important to make this clear because a lot of the information to be included in the passport data is related to the original sample (collecting number, collecting institution, country of origin, province/state, department/county, location of collecting site, collecting date of original sample, latitude, longitude, elevation of collecting site).

Characters
Only the 26 capital letters of the English alphabet should be used.
This is very important because some particular accented letters existing in some alphabets may not be available in computers. If there is more than one word in the same field it will not be necessary to use an underscore (_) between the words anymore.

Missing data / empty fields
A dash (-) will be automatically put in by the program for any missing data.

Geographic coordinates
The programme Arcinfo for the conversion of geographic coordinates utilized by different countries can be used. Every participant shall introduce latitude and longitude in the database according to the projection system adopted in the respective country (specifying in a note which system was adopted: e.g. in Italy the system used is UTM). It will be possible to convert the coordinates later if necessary.

Updating
The European databases of Populus nigra and Populus alba clones are available at the homepage of the CRA - PLF (www.populus.it) and of the CIFOR-INIA (http://www.inia.es/IniaPortal/verBuscador.action?txtBuscador=albanet). Each country can update at any time and directly on-line the data of its national collection; a specific password is requested for this purpose. Only the database manager is allowed to modify the details of a Country; any variations concerning contacts, addresses and institution codes should be mailed to the CRA-PLF.

Alternatively, the information to be included in the database can be forwarded in a file in EXCEL or ACCESS format.