After putting in all the hard work to take care of your crops over the season, you're now ready to harvest them and reap the rewards of your dedication and careful care. You've planted the crops in a grow location, and probably treated them over the course of their growth. Maybe you checked off some tasks, took some notes, and added pictures and documents to the planting as well. The time has come, and you're now ready to harvest your crops and track your yields, and then optionally add them to your inventory and storage and sell them in your Farmbrite market. Let's take a look at how you'll create these records and track them over time.
Note: Be sure to correctly set your harvest measurement unit on your crop type harvest details prior to creating a harvest. If you would normally measure your harvest in pounds but see "bales" when you record your first harvest, just navigate to the crop type and update the Harvest Measurement Unit to how you prefer to track the yields from this crop type. This is where you define how to measure your harvest - pounds, kilos, bunches, bales, tons, etc. This can vary per crop type, perhaps you harvest hay in bales but broccoli in pounds. Setting this unit up front keeps your data consistent and ensures that yield reports and comparisons remain accurate over time.
Harvesting Your Crops
There are multiple ways to create harvest records. It is important to realize they are all stored in the same way in the end, your choice is in the way you add the records. This is up to you, and what you find easiest for your workflow and how you operate your farm.
- On a Planting - If you would like to harvest from a specific planting in a specific location, you can navigate to that planting record and add a harvest directly from it.
- On the Crop Type - You can also record harvests from multiple plantings and locations at once from the crop type. So if you have multiple locations of the same crop type planted, you can navigate to that crop type, and then record harvests amount from each location in one action. Just click the Harvest button in the upper right.
- From the Grow Location - When you have multiple plantings of the same crop type within one grow location, you can select the location and use the bulk actions option to record the harvests directly from there. This can be helpful if you have multiple beds in a field or trays in a hydroponic tower with the same crop that should be harvested at the same time. You'll expand the bed headers and see checkboxes next to each planting; select the ones you want to harvest from and then use the Bulk Actions menu and choose Record Harvest.
- Using Quick Add - You can bypass navigating to a crop/planting record first and instead use the Quick Add menu. This handy option is available from any page in Farmbrite, just click the Quick Add button in the upper right and choose Crop Harvest. You'll supply the crop type and location to harvest from there. This is likely most beneficial when using a mobile device as it provides quick access to make the record without navigating through the menus.
- Importing for a single planting - If you had multiple harvests to record from a single planting you can also import your harvest records. This might make sense if you grow microgreens or flowers that you repeatedly harvest from over time, and want to add all the records at once from a spreadsheet.
No matter where you start, the harvest data ends up in the same place and is used consistently throughout Farmbrite for reporting and yield analysis.
Any of the above options provide the same fields for you to use to record information about the harvest.
- Amount - How much did you yield?
- Date - When did you harvest the crop? This can be backdated if you are entering the record at a later date.
- Grade/Size - How would you assess the quality of the harvest? This is a free form text box, the scale/assessment details are entirely up to you.
- Trace Number - Farmbrite will automatically create a trace number for you, encoded with the date, crop type, and location the harvest came from. An example would be 283-25-BR-ATR4-BO1-1, which represents the 283rd day of 2025, Broccoli, Across the Road Lot 4, Bed 01, first harvest of the day! You can add whatever you want to this field if you use your own traceability sequence.
- Batch Number - Add an additional identifying number if you need.
- Estimated Revenue - How much do you think you will make per unit?
- Notes - Add any additional notes that might help you in the future.
Need to track additional harvest data points that you don't see here? You can create custom fields to track whatever supplemental data you need, and then report on them as well. These could be dropdown menus, text fields, numeric fields, checkboxes, and more! Build what you need, your options are plentiful to track what's important for you.
Adding Harvests to Inventory
After recording a harvest, you'll have the option to add that harvest to your inventory. This is not required, but if you'd like to trace where you stored the harvest, and how much of it you have remaining, you can add it to a storage location. This step also integrates with your Market, so you can then sell the harvest in your online store.
No matter which way you chose to record the harvest from the options above, you'll add the harvest to inventory from the planting or crop type harvest page. To support the most detailed traceability, you'll add the harvest from each planting individually. This encodes the inventory addition with details about the harvest record, such as a traceability number/date, and location it came from.
You have two options to accomplish this:
- As you record the harvest from an individual planting, you can choose "Save and Add to Inventory" to complete this step at the same time as you create the harvest record. This two-step process accomplishes both aspects in sequence to ensure you don't forget the inventory addition.
- You can record harvest in any of the other ways above (or just wait on the second step), and then bulk add the harvests to inventory from the Crop Type Harvests tab. You'll do this from each harvest record to support proper traceability and inventory to harvest connections.
Either of these options also allows you to record a loss between the harvest and inventory addition. Maybe you removed some stems and seeds, or some of the amount harvested was rotten or spoiled. If you add less to inventory than what was harvested, the difference will be calculated as a loss percentage, and you can supply a reason for the discrepancy as well. IN one of our examples below you'll see we harvested 18lbs, but only add 17lbs to inventory for a 5% loss.
Why Recording Harvests Matters
Recording harvests isn’t just about keeping records - it’s how Farmbrite helps you improve your operation over time. Harvest data feeds directly into yield comparisons, crop reports, and long-term planning tools. Over time, this gives you real insight into which crops, varieties, and locations are performing best.
Even simple harvest records can make a big difference when you’re planning future seasons!