Orchid Wiz...worth it?

[fishmommy]

What are your experiences using Orchid Wiz software?
Thanks for your input, whatever it may be

[Leafmite]

It likely depends on how obsessed you are. I will never buy this as I just don't care enough beyond culture and, appearance, and blooms. But if you find yourself wondering about the breeding of your orchids, wish to learn more details of culture, want to know all the awards, are thinking of judging, keeping records, etc, this might be a good option.

[orchidsarefun]

for the following:
- keeping track of orchids and parentage ( eg $ paid, date purchased, vendor...there is a long list available )
- notes functionality is useful as you can make individualised notes on significant events - like blooming, repotting, pollination , seed germination etc
- investigating hybrid parentage before buying. Orchid profiles are great.
- looking at photos
- gives detail on species cultivation
- uploading photos into photo album
The only downside for me is that there is no smartphone app. The upside is that I was able to computerise all my notes and have everything in one place. Being able to have your own pictorial history of each plant has also been extremely useful.
I would recommend if you are a serious hobbyist and are one of those who cannot say no to buying or receiving another orchid.

[fishmommy]

I do participate in shows, so maybe it might be useful there. I wonder what the record keeping is like in it - that might be useful as well.

But yeah, it's a big investment so I need to make sure I'll use it

[tucker85]

My opinion is that for the average orchid grower it's probably not worth the money. My favorite part of the program is the Baker culture sheets which describe the habitat that species are found in, in the wild. Those sheets are only available in the full version, not the express version. For hybrids, the culture information is very general and not all that useful. The program is great for checking orchid names and their ancestry, if that's important to you. The section for tracking your own orchids is useful but I haven't put very many orchids in it. I prefer my other programs like Word or Excel for tracking my orchids. If $300 isn't a lot of money to you then you might as well get it, but if you're stretching your budget to buy it, and you're a hobby grower, I would suggest you pass. I think you'd get more information from a good book on orchids. That's just my opinion.

[orchidsarefun]

I think OB members get a discount - anyway ask if you decide to get one.
I got one at a special rate. I had OrchidWiz and then I upgraded.

[DavidCampen]

Originally Posted by tucker85

... The section for tracking your own orchids is useful but I haven't put very many orchids in it. I prefer my other programs like Word or Excel for tracking my orchids. ...

That is a missing feature - I would like to be able to add additional fields to the catalog entry for each of my plants and then be able to search and sort on those fields. Like a field to indicate if a plant has been virus tested, another field to indicate if a plant is deceased etc.

I may write my own code for this. I have been learning to write Windows applications using the WPF framework and using LINQ/XML for databases. I have code now to import Excel .xlsx data into XML and also code to manipulate XML data using LINQ.

[tucker85]

Originally Posted by DavidCampen

That is a missing feature - I would like to be able to add additional fields to the catalog entry for each of my plants and then be able to search and sort on those fields. Like a field to indicate if a plant has been virus tested, another field to indicate if a plant is deceased etc.

I may write my own code for this. I have been learning to write Windows applications using the WPF framework and using LINQ/XML for databases. I have code now to import Excel .xlsx data into XML and also code to manipulate XML data using LINQ.

Thanks to the comment by Silken, I found how you do it. Click on 'Search' in the upper left corner. Click on 'Cultivar'. There's a box called 'Genus' and a box called 'Abbr:'. You can use the pull down menu to find 'Potinara' in the Genus box, or 'Pot' in the Abbr. box. The program will list all the Potinaras. I also checked the 'Begins with' box but that might not be necessary.

[ronaldhanko]

I wouldn't be without it. The photos are helpful as is all the other information and I keep all my plants and photos logged into it using both the photo album and the journal, the journal to keep track of the plants and the photos with them and the album for all my other photos. Also use the awards records for keeping track of my awards.

It's very useful for cultural information, for looking up a plant you don't know and seeing pictures of it, for parentage, for seeing if something is worth taking to judging. Greatest orchid program ever IMO.

[DavidCampen]

I use it to maintain a catalog of my plants with date of purchase, vendor, and price and journal entries for when plants are repotted, flower, tested for virus etc. Also the catalog entry for each plant has photos that I have taken of the plant.

I wouldn't be without it.

And speaking of Orchidwiz, in another thread it was mentioned that it had a listing of of hybrid names with the genera that are in hybrids of that name. I can't find that. Would someone tell me how to get to that.