Getting field data to the agronomist

[Brisel]

How do you do this when your agronomist turns up to walk the farm? I'm thinking of previous applications, rates, dates etc. I have nearly 200 field under my control, so I can't remember everything & whilst I spend most of the day with the agronomist ad can recall most of the information, I'm not with him all day. Writing a crib sheet or spreadsheet or printing 300 pages is too time consuming.

I have Gatekeeper, so the Web App is an obvious solution. I used to have it at a previous farm but it stopped working a couple of years ago and I had a bit of a row with Farmplan when they tried charging me for it, having promised that they would fix it and didn't.

What do you use for information transfer?

 

[henry]

Muddy Boots Greenlight Grower. Frustrating slow to develop some important features, especially on costings but the whole concept is good and transfer between agonomist and farmer works well. The operator can also confirm plans as they are done but we have had some data issues with this and in my view it needs simplifying - maybe a standalone simple 'confirmation app' for operators.

 

[Brisel]

Muddy Boots Greenlight Grower. Frustrating slow to develop some important features, especially on costings but the whole concept is good and transfer between agonomist and farmer works well. The operator can also confirm plans as they are done but we have had some data issues with this and in my view it needs simplifying - maybe a standalone simple 'confirmation app' for operators.

Thank you, but I'm not changing to Muddy Boots! Always good to hear how other systems work, or not!

 

[Boysground]

I’m also on muddy boots but can see why you wouldn’t want to use it. More pressure on farmplan?

A working app should be seen as essential these days. All my field records on my phone is very useful

Bg

 

[Brisel]

I'm already paying a king's ransom to Farmplan and have spent a lot of time getting it working for me. Ditching it for learning a whole new system just fills me with dread. I've got a life to live, not be a slave to IT.

 

[farmerm]

Different scale of farming I know but I have various excel files stored on one drive and accessible on my phone so when the questions come up I have the answers to hand, usually

 

[strawturner]

We also use the Muddyboots Greenlight system and while it lacks a few (fairly basic) features, there has been improvements and more features promised. It is excellent for being able to see what operations have/have not been carried out on individual fields / whole plans for blocks, providing it is kept up to date of course.

 

[e3120]

Different scale of farming I know but I have various excel files stored on one drive and accessible on my phone so when the questions come up I have the answers to hand, usually

Also small scale, but echo the power of excel. A lot can be done with filters, anything with macros. I used to control the JIT supply for a car factory with it, and that was in the days when it was installed with a large stack of floppies.

 

[yellow belly]

How do you do this when your agronomist turns up to walk the farm? I'm thinking of previous applications, rates, dates etc. I have nearly 200 field under my control, so I can't remember everything & whilst I spend most of the day with the agronomist ad can recall most of the information, I'm not with him all day. Writing a crib sheet or spreadsheet or printing 300 pages is too time consuming.

I have Gatekeeper, so the Web App is an obvious solution. I used to have it at a previous farm but it stopped working a couple of years ago and I had a bit of a row with Farmplan when they tried charging me for it, having promised that they would fix it and didn't.

What do you use for information transfer?

i still use crop walker which still works ok so can look up the previous 20 years records in the office and often look back at different situations based on memory
i do find that i do not always remember the detail
when i first got cropwalker i did originally intend to transfer the previous paper records onto the system but now ocasionally look back into the cropping book if i think the weather and crop is similar

this does not help you as with a new farm it is impossible to learn all the previous history

possible options depending on your system
print history of each field to pdf and store on a tablet
to simplify into cropping blocks could reduce the number but would lose some detail

 

[Chae1]

You really need to get Greenlight. In my opinion it's great. I'm a idiot and I manage it.

 

[farenheit]

I am always interested in this discussion but its amazing that there isn't a disruptor in this market yet. A lot of start ups come and go but nothing groundbreaking. I fear the big companies and machinery manufacturers are going to muscle their way in and use it as a data grab. Would happily pay good money for a decent system.

 

[Hampton]

I use greenlight, it’s a good program. I don’t think it is as good as the old cropwalker program, but that’s probably because I used that program an awful lot and new it inside and out.
I have neither the time nor inclination to learn any more than the basics of greenlight

 

[EddieB]

Another vote for Greenlight here.

 

[Badshot]

I'm using the gatekeeper web app.
Works ok.
It has recently changed to only have this year's data cached though.
I record everything done via it.
He published the rec, I check and sync to my phone.
Then sync back to the PC.
There must be a way he could have access to that data too.
I can have more than one device so he could have the web app on his phone too and see what you are.


Android phone. Not I phone.

 

[farenheit]

I'm using the gatekeeper web app.
Works ok.
It has recently changed to only have this year's data cached though.
I record everything done via it.
He published the rec, I check and sync to my phone.
Then sync back to the PC.
There must be a way he could have access to that data too.
I can have more than one device so he could have the web app on his phone too and see what you are.


Android phone. Not I phone.

In this day and age all this syncing is very, very archaic. It should just be there.

 

[Oscar]

Not really what your asking but I m a contractor and a AD buisness I work for is really into data and records and there are three of us contractors doing the work . The other two are JD guys so I know he can send recs via My JD to the sprayers and operators can open recs, fill in detail like weather and it auto does times and dates. When field is finished it saves it and then at farm ( internet) it uploads to gatekeeper . Agronomist and Drivers have app on phone and can view detail.
I m different in that I use a Bateman with Agleader . I subscribe to Agfiniti ( Agleaders system of data transfer) and have given the agronomist access to my account so he uploads gatekeeper recs to Agfiniti and they go straight to my machine and sprayed detail, A_ B lines etc are uploaded back to Agfiniti at end of day and he can download back to gatekeeper . I also have app on phone, both gatekeeper and agfiniti

 

[BenB]

@Brisel You can publish completed field data back to the agronomist, I have a couple of clients that do this to me the day/night before I visit. Although obviously you need the completed job data being either entered in manually or coming direct from the operator using the Web App (the latter being less time consuming for you!)

 

[Brisel]

@Brisel You can publish completed field data back to the agronomist, I have a couple of clients that do this to me the day/night before I visit. Although obviously you need the completed job data being either entered in manually or coming direct from the operator using the Web App (the latter being less time consuming for you!)

Thank you. I assume that you have Gatekeeper? I'm not sure my agronomist does but he will confirm either way I'm sure. If he doesn't, I can still get him the app for his phone on my own account. I may have to get him set up & help him get the data before he sets off - he's of the old school type who doesn't do much via email, so the tech is going to take a few goes...!

I spoke to Nick W this afternoon to see how he gets on with it. He is happy with the app.

 

[farenheit]

Thank you. I assume that you have Gatekeeper? I'm not sure my agronomist does but he will confirm either way I'm sure. If he doesn't, I can still get him the app for his phone on my own account. I may have to get him set up & help him get the data before he sets off - he's of the old school type who doesn't do much via email, so the tech is going to take a few goes...!

I spoke to Nick W this afternoon to see how he gets on with it. He is happy with the app.

Gatekeeper Agronomist web-app interface? That will be £1,299+vat per year...

 

[Brisel]

Gatekeeper Agronomist web-app interface? That will be £1,299+vat per year...

He walks thousands of acres. Maybe he does have it? The phone app would cost me less than £100 hopefully.