Entities

An entity is a single, unique organism registered on Ohtli. Every entity gets a unique OHT-ID, its own public page, and a QR code that links back to that page.

Entities can be any domesticated species tracked on the platform — plants like tomatoes, peppers, squash, fruit trees, or other species. Each entity represents one specific organism, not a variety or cultivar in general.

Entity pages display the organism's name, species, status, origin, description, tasting notes, growing notes, photos and videos, lineage tree, and key dates.

Founding stock is the entry point for genetics into the Ohtli system. These are organisms that were not bred from existing Ohtli parents — they come from outside the system.

Any Ohtli user can register founding stock. Founding stock is a new entity that has no tracked lineage in Ohtli. Any plant or organism you own can be registered. If it's new to Ohtli, an unknown variety, or a seedling, it will be given a unique Ohtli ID. Please be aware some varieties are protected by patents and trademarks — we advise you avoid listing and selling these varieties without express agreement from the patent or trademark holder.

If your plant is a known variety (e.g. Honeycrisp, Brandywine), check the "known variety" box and enter the variety name. This helps the community track genetics across the platform — every entity is a unique individual, but knowing the variety tells us its genetic background. Please don't register the same individual organism twice.

Founding stock cannot have Ohtli parents listed. They represent the root of a lineage tree — all bred descendants trace back to founding stock. Entities that violate these policies may be removed. For more details, see the [Founding Stock Guide](/founding-stock).

Bred organisms were sexually reproduced from at least one known Ohtli parent. This is the core of how Ohtli tracks genetic lineage across generations.

When registering a bred organism, you must select Parent A — an existing entity in the system. You can search by name or OHT-ID to find the parent.

Parent B is optional. If the second parent is known and registered on Ohtli, search for and select it. If the second parent is unknown (e.g., open pollination from an unregistered source), you can mark Parent B as unknown.

The two rules of Ohtli apply: the organism must be sexually reproduced from at least one Ohtli parent, and it must be traceable to its Ohtli page via QR code or OHT-ID.

You can edit any entity you own from the My Entities table in your dashboard. Click the edit button next to the entity you want to update.

Entity-wide fields (one set per entity, edited by the owner): the entity's name, description, and shared photos and videos. These are visible to everyone on the entity's public page.

Per-grower fields (each grower keeps their own copy): your tasting notes, growing notes, location, planting date, producing date, and growth status. These reflect *your* experience with the entity. If multiple growers are growing the same entity, each one maintains their own version of these fields — they don't overwrite each other. Other growers' notes appear separately on the entity page so visitors can compare experiences across locations and conditions.

You can also upload photos and videos (MP4, up to 20 minutes / 2 GB) on the edit page. The same picker handles both — pick image or video files and they upload through their respective pipelines (S3 for photos, Mux for videos). You can set a primary photo that appears as the entity's main image; videos render with a play overlay in the gallery.

Promote from your journal. Below the upload area, the Add from your journal section lists every photo or video you've attached to a journal entry on this entity that isn't already on the gallery. Tap any of them to promote — they show up on the entity page without re-uploading. Items you promote drop out of the picker on the next view.

Changes are saved immediately and reflected on the entity's public page.

Every entity has a status that reflects whether you still have access to it.

Living — The organism is alive and you have access to it.

Dead — The organism has died. Its records and lineage data remain in the system.

Lost — You no longer have access to the organism (e.g., you moved away, gave it away, or don't know its fate). Its records and lineage data are preserved.

If you no longer have a plant — it died, you lost track of it, you gave it away, or you registered it by accident — you can mark that you've stopped growing it from the entity edit page or from the "Stop growing" link next to the entity in your dashboard list.

You'll be asked a short question: What happened? Pick from *Plant died*, *Lost track of it*, *Gave it away*, *Created on accident*, or *Other*. If you pick *Plant died*, you can optionally tag the cause: *Disease*, *Pests*, *Cold*, *Drought*, *Heat*, *Old age*, *Unknown*, or *Other*. You can also add free-form notes.

Stopping growing hides your contributor info on that entity from your dashboard and writes a matching terminal entry into the entity's journal (a Death, Lost, or Stopped Growing entry, depending on the reason). The entity itself stays in place — its page, lineage, photos, and history remain. If other growers are still growing it, the entity stays active. If you were the only grower, the entity is archived.

Logging culled selections. If you intentionally removed a plant because of how it performed — bad flavor, low yield, disease susceptibility, weak growth, etc. — that's not the same as it dying. Instead of using "Stop growing," create a Culled [journal entry](/help/journal#creating-entries) directly. Culled entries capture *why* you rejected the selection, which is one of Ohtli's most valuable breeding signals.

Resuming. If you stopped by accident, visit the entity's edit page and click Start growing again. Resuming brings the entity out of archive automatically (see Archived Entities below).

When the last grower of an entity stops growing it, the entity is archived. The page and lineage stay so descendants and references aren't broken — only the active-grower state changes.

Active listings on an archived entity are paused automatically. The entity stops appearing in active grower searches and dashboards.

If someone joins as a grower again, the entity comes out of archive automatically. There's no manual unarchive — the action of growing it again is enough.

If you give a plant, cutting, or organism to another grower, you can transfer the digital record to them on Ohtli.

From your entity's page in the dashboard, click "Transfer Ownership." Enter the email address of the recipient — they must already have an Ohtli account.

You can add optional notes about the transfer (e.g., growing conditions, care instructions).

After transfer, the entity appears in the new owner's dashboard and is removed from yours. The transfer is recorded in the entity's ownership history.