Why «Еуростар» is not a variety name
In registries, Cyrillic spellings are derived from low-quality machine transliteration. We use them as a search key, never as a variety name. Here is why this matters.
In official registries, variety names are recorded in Latin script. Cyrillic spellings in the source data were obtained via machine transliteration — and it is broken more often than it works.
What is wrong with the source data
In the Cyrillic name field, 214,266 records contain Latin letters mixed into Cyrillic words: «периqуита» instead of «перикита», «брунсwийкер» instead of «брунсвийкер». The transliterator did not recognize some characters and left them as is. This accounts for 29% of all records; such a field cannot be trusted.
Why this matters for search
A variety name is a proper noun. It is fixed in the registry and is not translated: Solerosso remains Solerosso in any language. However, a person searches in a way that is convenient for them, typing in Cyrillic what they saw in Latin.
Therefore, our database stores its own normalized form of each name — in both alphabets — and searches through both. The query is converted to the same forms as the data: «Солероссо» and Solerosso lead to the same card.
One variety under different names
29,561 varieties are registered under more than one designation: a breeder's reference, a trade name, or a synonym in another country. All known variations are displayed in the card and are included in the search — you can look up a variety by any of them.
Crop names are different
They, in fact, are translated. «Кукуруза», «Кукурудза», and Zea mays are the same crop, and the database recognizes all three spellings. A query by crop name opens its entire section rather than a list of tens of thousands of varieties.
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Growing experience and notes on the entry. Comments are not part of the reference data and are not verified against primary sources.