THE PROCESSES DONE BEFORE TRANSFERRING THE PLANT SAMPLES IN THE VANF HERBARIUM TO THE DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

It is an indisputable fact that plants are essential for life, as they constitute a fundamental part of life on Earth and provide breathable oxygen, habitat, food, fuel, medicine and many other benefits for living things. It is necessary to understand the importance of plants in order to increase agricultural productivity and sustainability, to discover new pharmaceuticals, to reduce the negative effects of climate change, in short, to better understand life as a whole.It is for these reasons that since the first years of life, scientists have tried to observe and recognize plants, taking notes about plants, drawing pictures of them and tending to identify them.These flora studies, which have survived and continued since then, are important in terms of creating a resource for biology, medicine, agriculture, medicament, cosmetics, food and many other branches of science.In this context, researchers collect plant species and archive them in herbariums. In this study; It is aimed to draw attention to the importance of the processes performed before the digitization of the VANF (Van Yüzüncü Yıl University Faculty of Science Herbarium) herbarium, which has a rich plant collection that is collected and dried as a result of long efforts. Approximately 23500 plant specimens registered in the VANF herbarium operating within the Van Flora Application and Research Center were examined one by one before being transferred to the digital environment, and labeled and archived in accordance with the herbarium rules.