2023-2028 trial participants: observations start on 1 April

Observation forms for 2024

For macro-garden participants

For general information about the ENKETO webform please visit the site for micro-garden participants.

The ENKETO Webform

First, learn about the ENKETO webforms using the site for micro-garden participants. You will not use the two forms mentioned on this site, but you can learn about the way they work.

You can open them in your computer browser to familiarize yourself with them, and in the field, you can open them on your smartphone. They work offline too, however, when you open them for the first time, you have to have internet connection.

If you received only Abies seeds, you have to fill in only the Abies form, if you received only Fagus seeds, you have to fill in only the Fagus form, and if you have both, you have to fill in both forms. The forms know about the composition of your macro-garden, so only species and provenances that your garden contains will be proposed. Additionally, you will have the option to add other provenances, e.g. if you took up extra seeds from another participants or you received some seeds bags accidentally.

Links to the webforms

Note that all forms are available on our server, ONA, and you can access them using your ONA username. Contact katalin.csillery@wsl.ch if you need access.

GerminationAbies: https://enketo.ona.io/x/3IrhrKGd

GerminationFagus: https://enketo.ona.io/x/JObmQonW

SenescenceFagus: https://enketo.ona.io/x/6t0HcvKE

SurvivalHeightFagus: https://enketo.ona.io/x/eS3mbXga

SurvivalHeightAbies: https://enketo.ona.io/x/cLUko7Ck

Observe your seedlings starting from the NW corner

You will go through the whole macro-garden and observe the germination and the survival of seedlings. Start observing from the North West corner of your garden, and move from left to right, and from the top to the bottom, as if you were reading a book. Your observations will be split into different forms of ~20 families (see below), nevertheless, you should respect this order. If you perform your observations across different days, mark the family where you stopped and continue from there the next day. You may wish to mark the NW corner of the garden with a coloured tag or a flag to help future observations.

Submit your form after having observed ~20 families to prevent data loss

The forms are informed about the number of independent seed origins (families) that you have in your garden. In theory, you could submit a single form for your whole garden at once. However, we do not recommend this. This is because long forms (that loop through many families) are slow and unstable. Thereby the form will ask you how many families you would like to observe. We advise that you give a number around 20, which is the default value. The exact number doesn't matter and if you have a slow phone, you may choose less. Then, you will be be provided with the question about the germination rate and the developmental stages of the seedlings 20 times, once for each family. Complete these questions and submit your form! Then, you will be taken back to the starting page, and can start a new form for the following 20 families. When you are reaching the end of the nursery, you can count exactly how many families are left, and give that number in your last form. If you made a mistake, and you have less families than what you gave, simply choose the provenance "Other" and then "Not available", and 0 for the number of seedlings to "get out of the loop" and be able to finish the form.

Note that many Fagus gardens have 21 or less families. In these cases, the form will not ask you to give the number of families, but simply take you though all of them by default! In contrast, most Abies gardens have around 150 families, so here you will have to submit 7-8 forms.

How many seedlings do I have to observe?

For most families, we sent you 1000 Abies or 500 Fagus seeds. Although the germination rate is low, that many seeds could potentially mean hundreds of seedlings. We suggest a compromise: you split your nursery space for a family to four, and you count the seedlings in one quarter. The form will propose you a randomly selected quarter to observe, for example, the first quarter is shown on this image.

Tip: use sticks with appropriate half/quarter marks as needed to split the space to 4 equal parts.

What do I have to observe? Required and optional questions

Some of the questions are required some are optional. The required questions are the date, the observer's name, the garden ID, the number of families to be observed, the provenance, the family, and the number of seedlings in one quarter. All other questions are optional. Hint: If you can pass on to the next question without an answer, it means that question was not required. This will allow you to dose the work load according to your capacity. For example, if it is beyond your capacity to estimate the % of seedlings in the different developmental stages, you can leave these questions unanswered. Or, it is also sufficient to record the coordinates of the nursery once, for example, in the first form that you fill in for the first 20 families. Nevertheless, recording the coordinates in multiple forms will improve the precision. The form will also ask you to take a picture of the seedlings for each family (all 4 quarters together). You may or may not do this for all families, however, we encourage you to take a picture of each family as we maybe able to extract other information from these pictures later on.

When should I make the observations?

The idea of these ENKETO webforms is that each macro-garden participant can make as many observations as s/he can. We ask every participant to make at least one observation in June, however, if you can make more than one observations on your full garden, or perhaps on part of it, if you can. The more data the better, of course.

Why do we use ENKETO and not the ODK Collect app?

For Android phones, there is an app called ODK Collect that can make the use the webforms much more convenient, however, we will not be able to use this for macro-garden observations for technical reasons. Briefly, with ODK the number of columns in the observation sheets must be identical to avoid data loss (see), while ENKETO simply fills in the missing columns with n/a values. Since the size of each macro-garden is different, so as the number of families to be observed, we have to use ENKETO to efficiently organize our data.

Are the forms available in other languages than English?

The forms have been translated to Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. Partial translations are present for German, Croatian, Sloven and Polish. You can choose any of these languages from the menu, non-translated text will be present in English. If you need a complete translation because your technicians or students would be more comfortable with a fully translated version, you can help us translate the texts and we can include the translations in the form! Please email me if you would like to have a translated version.

Where is my data?

The observations are stored on our ONA servers and are accessible to all macro-garden participants, but not for third parties. Please create an ONA account so you can be added to the project website: https://ona.io/mygardenoftrees/231749

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