One code per plant, the same in every language
A box tree moth is called four different things in four countries. EPPO gives that insect one five-letter code, and FairGrow hangs your crops, your pests and your authorisations on it. So you ask the same question everywhere and get the answer that belongs to your country.
A name is not a key
Buxusmot, pyrale du buis, Buchsbaumzünsler, box tree moth. Four names, one insect. As long as you compute with names, you have to maintain a list for every language and every spelling, and it still goes wrong for the species that people mix up in everyday speech. EPPO gives every organism a single five-letter code, and that code does not change when you switch language or country.
The same question, everywhere
FairGrow hangs your crops, your pests and your authorisations on the EPPO code. So you ask the same question in Flanders as in North Holland, and you get the answer that applies in your country without typing anything different.
Your own layers come first
FairGrow already knows 1,115 verified crops and 2,659 codes that come out of national authorisations. Searching starts there, so most questions cost no request to EPPO at all. Only when our own layers do not know does the question go out.
The cache is compulsory, not optional
Every question passes our own copy first. We keep a taxon for thirty days, relations and regulation for seven. EPPO data moves slowly, so that costs you nothing in freshness and saves their servers a great deal of traffic.
An outage is not evidence
If a request fails we deliberately serve the stale copy with a flag on it. A network error does not mean an organism does not exist, and an empty screen reads as “nothing found”. That difference matters too much to paper over.
Two roads to the same database
With an API key we use the Global Database API. Without one, or if it falls over, we switch back to the public database that carries the same content. You notice nothing except that it keeps working.
The bridge to the authorisation register
On a crop you see not only what EPPO lists as a pest, but also what there is an authorised product against in your country. That query runs over the same use block, because testing crop and pest separately produces an answer that means nothing.
Every view names the source
The data comes from the EPPO Global Database and is used under the Open Data Licence. Wherever it appears on your screen, the source is named with a link. That is not decoration, it is the condition on which open data stays open.
Three questions you actually ask
What is this, exactly
Type a name in your own language and you get the code, the preferred name and the synonyms EPPO knows. Useful when you meet an organism on a label or in an alert and want to know whether it is the same thing you saw walking around your glasshouse.
What attacks what
From a crop you see which organisms EPPO links to it, and from an organism which crops it attacks. That is the list that lets you place an observation before you decide anything.
How the regulator sees it
The categorisation shows whether an organism appears on a quarantine or alert list somewhere. That changes nothing about what you may do, but it does explain why some reports weigh heavier than others.
A quarter of the first list turned out to be guesswork
When the crop layer was built there was already a list of 67 codes. On checking, seven did not exist in EPPO and five pointed at an entirely different plant. The most memorable slip: NAASS was on that list as narcissus, but it is the code for watercress.
- Since then no code enters the table without being looked up in the Global Database
- The preferred name there has to match the scientific name the supplying party attaches to it
- Codes that cannot be mapped cleanly get a warning rather than a silent guess
EPPO, the plant protection organization for Europe and the Mediterranean
EPPO is the intergovernmental organization that has been setting plant health agreements for Europe and the Mediterranean since 1951. The Global Database is their public reference work: taxonomy, distribution, host plants, and which organisms are under surveillance where. It is where the rest of the sector gets its codes, and therefore where we get ours.
We use the database under the Open Data Licence. That means we name the source wherever we show the data, and keep our traffic to what we genuinely need. Our cache is not only there for our own speed; above all it makes sure that a growing number of growers never becomes a burden on a public facility.
Read on at gd.eppo.int and at EPPO itself.
Attribution: EPPO Global Database, used under the Open Data Licence. It appears under every view that draws on it.
What growers ask us
Do I need to memorise these codes?
No. You type the name you use, in your own language. The code is the track FairGrow computes along, not something you have to remember. You do see it, so you can copy it across when an authority or a supplier asks for it.
What if my crop has no EPPO code?
It happens, particularly in ornamentals and on uncropped land. You see that as a warning rather than a rejection. Let us know and we will look at whether a clean mapping can be made after all.
Why does my hydrangea sit under four different entries?
Because a national authorisation is not written on EPPO codes but on crop groups. The Dutch board hangs seventy codes on the single entry “other pot plants”, and conversely hydrangea sits in “hydrangea”, “other pot plants”, “other cut flowers” and “other climbing plants”. That mapping is many to many and differs per country, so we keep it in an explicit versioned table rather than in clever logic you cannot retell later.
How fresh is the data?
We keep a taxon for thirty days, relations and regulation for seven. EPPO data shifts slowly, so you will not notice in practice. If you see a flag saying an answer is stale, it means EPPO was unreachable at that moment and we would rather show you the previous truth than an empty screen.
Does this cost extra?
No. Looking up crops and pests is part of your plan. What you can add is the product check, which makes the step from “what is this” to “may I use something against it here”.
See it on your own crop
Put your plot into FairGrow and your crops get their code straight away. That opens the door to the pest list, the product register and the crop records, without keeping a second list anywhere.
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