Founding stock guide
Everything you need to know about adding new genetics to Ohtli.
What is founding stock?
Founding stock is how new genetics enter the Ohtli system. These are organisms that weren't bred from existing Ohtli parents — they come from outside the system and become the root of a new lineage tree. Every bred organism in Ohtli traces back to at least one founding stock ancestor.
What qualifies as founding stock?
Any real plant or organism you own can be founding stock. It doesn't matter if it's a named variety, a seedling, or something you bought at a nursery — what matters is that it's a real, individual organism that you're giving its own identity in the Ohtli system.
Great founding stock
- +Your backyard Honeycrisp apple tree
- +Seedlings you grew from seed
- +Heirloom varieties from your garden
- +Plants from a nursery or seed swap
- +Wild-collected plants you're growing
Please don't add
- ×Patented or trademarked varieties (e.g. Cosmic Crisp™, SweeTango™) without express agreement from the holder
- ×Plants from an existing Ohtli entity (register those as bred instead)
Not sure if a variety is patented? Most varieties older than 20 years are in the public domain.
Entities that violate these policies may be removed.
How to register founding stock
Registering founding stock is free and open to all Ohtli users. From your dashboard, click “Register New” and select “Founding Stock” as the origin type. You'll be asked to select the species and provide details about the organism.
If your plant is a known variety (e.g. Honeycrisp, Brandywine), check the “known variety” box and enter the variety name. Every entity in Ohtli is a unique individual, but flagging the variety tells the community its genetic background. Please don't register the same individual organism twice.
Once registered, your organism gets a unique OHT-ID and its own page. From there, you can breed it with other Ohtli organisms and register the offspring — building your own lineage tree.