Farmbrite is available to crop growers all around the globe, no matter what your growing season is. We work with many tropical and equatorial farms that grow all year round, and others at the edges of each hemisphere that produce crops with a much shorter growing window. You'll likely want your crop plan, grow locations, and planting lists to reflect that growing season, and reset your expected yields and harvests each year to reflect the new timeframe as well. No matter when you are located, you can set a start date to your growing season to help you plan your unique year!
To set this date, just navigate to your Settings. You'll see an option for Season Start Date towards the bottom. Set this to whatever day you'd like your season to begin. This resets your crop plan, currently planted crops, and harvest details based on this date. You might think of this as a cut off date to end the current season and start a new one. Note that the season will be current for the next 364 days following the start date; you are effectively defining a "growing year" that does not need to be based on a calendar year.
In our example below, we set this to April 1st for a northern hemisphere growing season. While we might not put plants in the ground until after the first frost in May, we start our seedlings in our greenhouse a bit earlier than that and thus want our plans and schedule to reflect that. If we lived in the southern hemisphere, we might set the start date to sometime in September so we can get our plants ready for spring sprouting before putting them in the ground in November.
Note that the default season start date is based on the annual calendar year and thus starts on January 1st. This might work great for you if you are located in a tropical region and grow all year round. However, you can still change it if you'd like your crop plan and plantings to reflect a different date range by default.
What does this date affect?
Great question! The season start date is used in multiple areas.
- Your Crop Plan will default to begin on the season start date. The end date will default to 364 days later, creating a full year's plan based on your start date. This is true for your main crop plan, and any shown for individual crops or grow locations as well. You can update the date range on the plan to see plantings outside of the season, or shorten it for a more specific chart.
- Additionally, within both of the Crop Type and Grow Location areas:
- Your Crop Type and Grow Location records will determine whether your planting is currently planted or is a historical planting based on the season start date. Currently planted means you are still working with that planting in that season, while historic means that it is completed after the season ends. A current planting is defined by having a seed start date, planting date, or harvest date (plus harvest window) within the season. Plantings remain current until the end of the season. Note: You can always mark a planting as Complete if you'd like to move it to history prior to the season ending.
- Specific to perennial plantings, since a single planting spans multiple growing seasons, they will always be considered current until you mark them complete regardless of your season start date.
- Specific to perennial plantings, since a single planting spans multiple growing seasons, they will always be considered current until you mark them complete regardless of your season start date.
- Expected Harvest Dates will display based on the Season Start Date. You'll see the next expected harvest this season, or any late harvest dates if a yield has not yet been recorded. Once a new season starts, your continually planted perennials will look forward to the next season's harvest as well.
- Harvest progress gauges will reset on this date too. You'll see what was harvested in the current season in those at-a-glance meters, but can always run reports or access the yields tab for historical data.
- Your Crop Type and Grow Location records will determine whether your planting is currently planted or is a historical planting based on the season start date. Currently planted means you are still working with that planting in that season, while historic means that it is completed after the season ends. A current planting is defined by having a seed start date, planting date, or harvest date (plus harvest window) within the season. Plantings remain current until the end of the season. Note: You can always mark a planting as Complete if you'd like to move it to history prior to the season ending.
Overall, this date selection should help you better see what's currently planted when you season spans multiple calendar years, and get a better sense of your perennial yield for a given season as well. Let us know if you have any questions regarding this selection.