Crops

Learn how to define crop types to set their characteristics and traits. You can add new crop types, which are basically definitions of the types of crops you grow. Farmbrite comes preloaded with many different crops by default, but you can always add your own as well. The default types can also we edited to reflect your local conditions and climate if you'd like. As you create the crop types, you'll be able to define different varieties and strains of each, so you might have Peppers as a type with varieties like Bell, Jalapeno, and Habanero. This section also houses the planting details for each type/variety, where you add extra information like plant spacing, days to emerge, and soil preference. You also have harvest details, where you'll add the days it takes for the plant to reach maturity, and how much you would expect to harvest from the plant based on acreage or square footage. These factors are used to calculate when the crop should be planted in your climate, and how much yield your might expect to get from it. You can also create custom fields to track additional data if you need.

Grow locations are exactly what they sound like - the locations you grow your crops! You can create as many of these as you need, and then plant your crops in the different locations to track them over time. Fields or grow locations in Farmbrite can be anywhere that you are growing plants and want to keep track of the productivity of that area. For example, a field can represent a traditional 40 acre field of row crops, or an orchard of trees or berries, or a market garden plot, or a raised bed, or a greenhouse. They might even be indoor grow rooms or hydroponic towers. Grow locations can also be divided into beds, letting you plant different crops in different sections of a field to track them separately. Beyond that, you might use grow locations for pastures to graze your animals too; you can also plant hay or pasture grass in them and to harvest for winter feedings. These grow locations can also be connected to your Farm Map, helping you get a birds-eye view of your fields and see where you might gain efficiencies in your layout. You'll also have many options to take care of your grow locations; you can add treatments and nutrients and then record soil samples, and you also add tasks, events, and notes to be sure you are reminded to get those done!

Planning is a critical part of your farming operation! You'll likely want to know what to expect in the coming days, weeks, and months, or even into next season. Farmbrite can help you with many aspects of this. first, you'll find a Crop Plan that displays all of the crops you are growing within a specified date range, and where they are being grown. You'll see their seeding, vegetative, and harvesting periods on here as well, so you can easily plan for your future needs. You can also plan your crops using Tasks, which can be automatically created for when to start your crops and when to harvest them as well. In addition to the tasks, you can also create events to be displayed on your Farmbrite schedule. Beyond all of that, Farmbrite also helps you create repeated plantings into the future, so that you can immediately replant a bed or field after harvesting for succession planting needs. This can help you stay on top of your CSA needs, and better plan for when you'll have items in stock in your Farmbrite Market.

A planting is a combination of a crop type and a grow location. Essentially, you'll choose what crop type you want to plant, and then where to plant it. Farmbrite will use the details specificized in the crop type to automatically calculate things like when the plant should be planted after frost, and when you can expect to harvest that planting. You can create multiple plantings of crop types, and lay them out in separate fields or beds. You can also use the Bulk Plantings feature to plant multiple plantings of a single crop across multiple locations with one action. Beyond that, you could also use the Calculate plantings feature to have the software calculate when you should start your planting based on the day you need to harvest. You can then add treatments to these plantings individually, or in bulk if you need. These planting specific treatments might be things like irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and more. Once ready, you can record harvests for these plantings and place the yield into your inventory. Plantings can be reported on in the reporting section. Once you are done with the plantings, you can also mark them as complete.

Taking care of your crops and fields is extremely important! The plants don't take care of themselves! You'll likely want to record what you do to the fields and crops to have records of different things applied. This can help you trace things for certifications, but can also help you know what worked, and what needs some tweaking for next season. You can record treatments on indivdiual plantings or grow locations, so whether you fertilize the whole bed and field, or apply insecticide to a single planting where you spotted aphids, Farmbrite has you covered. You can also add those treatments in bulk by selecting multiple plantings in a field as well. When you record a treatment you'll choose what you did, including things like irrigation, tilling, fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, mite and mildew remedies, and more. You can then select how much you applied of what product, and even remove it from your inventory at the same time. You can also create custom fields for treatments, so if you don't see the field you need for your unique data, go ahead and make one! The treatments also track withdrawal date and retreat dates, automatically alerting you and creating tasks. You'll have reports for all of this data as well!

After you have put in the planning and work to plant and treat your crops, you'll of course want to harvest their yields! Farmbrite's harvest feature can be done on from an individual planting to harvest just the bed or row, or can be accomplished in bulk as well, letting you select multiple grow locations to harvest from. If you created automated tasks when planting your crops, don't forget to check your task list for the expected harvest date as well. As you harvest, you can assign batch numbers for harvest traceability and grade it for quality. You'll of course add an amount as well, whether that is pounds, bushels, bales, kilos, or other measurement units. Farmbrite will automatically generate a QR code for this harvest so you can print it and label your yield in your warehouse so you can always scan the code with your phone to reference back to this harvest. At that point you'll also optionally add it to your inventory so you can track it into your warehouses and bins. You can also record a loss at this time, in case you have any spoilage, rotten areas to remove, or stalks and husks that are unsellable as well. You'll also find many reports for these harvests, including a harvest summary and yield comparisons over different varieties of the same crop type. The main harvest page for your crop type will also displays charts and graphs for additional visual representations of your harvests!