Acres of trellis

Cliff wrote this excellent reason to put what we are doing out in public on the internet: "Maybe a wealthy sponsor will get interested and set up a hundred acres of trellis for me to plant with new seeds!"

Thanks Cliff!

Here is the full quote.  It comes from a 'GrapeBreeders' list discussion on the topic 'should this list be public'?

> Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2012 10:27:31 -0500
> From: cambers@sbc.edu
> To: grapebreeders
> Subject: [grapebreeders] is this list public?
>
> Hi All,
>
> I have always been under the impression that the list contents
> are public except for the last day. I think I ran across this in the
> Ibiblio documentation. I concur with Bill's comments below. I WANT
> my comments to be public because no one in the grape growing world
> will understand there are other ways of thinking about grapes beside
> vinifera if the conversations aren't public. The other beauty of
> Ibiblio in my opinion is that it is an attempt to put internet content
> and discussions posted to it "in stone" as much as is possible. This
> means every contribution you make to the list is actually a
> publication that records this instant in history. We have very sparse
> information about the history of the vine when you consider how long
> it has been cultivated. The history of the vine in America is even
> more sparse. This list is a record of how we are STILL trying to
> build an indigenous viticulture for North America - after 200-some
> years! So, if you don't want it recorded, don't put it on the list!
> Alternatively, if you have a point of view, posting your observations
> and inferences from your work gets it recorded.
>
> I often wonder when agriculture went from an open source
> community effort to a proprietary industry where information is held
> secret and reverberates on this list. I guess it was through the 20th
> century. I take my lead from the early American breeders and 20th
> century shamans of breeding like Zehnder, Dunstan and Swenson. These
> vines are for everyone and are a source of sweetness in times of pain
> and sorrow. Where do you get candy if the trucks stop running? Call
> it crazy thinking, but it is only a hiccup on Wall Street away. Vines
> like Catawba, Isabella, Herbemont and Norton were the candy before the
> supermarkets. We are breeding the candy plants that will survive
> after they close.
>
> Regards, Cliff
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> is this list public?
> Shoemaker, William H
> Mon Nov 19 09:36:23 EST 2012
>
> Perhaps I'm naive, but I'm not sure there is any great risk from our
> conversations being made public. There may be a few small ones, but
> I've been on this list for many years and I'm not aware of any serious
> consequences emerging from having these threads being made public. It
> sounds like, on the other hand, there are some on this list that found
> it because of its availability publicly. I know I was contacted by
> Julia Harding, an associate of Jancis Robinson, about some of the work
> going on in private grapebreeding in the upper Midwest. I believe they
> learned some of what they knew through public exposure to this list.
> There may be some upsides to public exposure, so long as there isn't
> any public indecency. But then, I'm used to having a public mission
> component to my work and believe society benefits enormously from such
> a mission component. Those of us who graduate to businesses based on
> work we develop on this list may need to be more careful, but I think
> that has already taken place, and becomes a personal discipline. Can't
> avoid that anyway.