I did soil testing last year and am spreading some ammendments on the farm (cow manure, chicken manure, wood ash) this spring and I’d like to keep logs both of the soil test results (by field) and of the fields that we’re spreading on and when. How would you all recommend that I do that?
@danigrover “There’s a module for that!” 
Turn on the “Lab test log” module (if you haven’t already), and you’ll get a new “Lab test” log type. These can be used to record when and where you collected a sample from (down to the specific points if you want), when the lab received/processed it, and what the results were.
There are two ways to record the results. The easy way is to just attach a PDF to the log when you get it back from the lab. That works as a minimum, and allows easy access in the future. The other way (in addition to the PDF) is to add “Test Quantities” for each measurement, so you have granular data stored in your database. That requires more manual data entry, of course, so you have to measure the cost/benefit of your time. We’re also working on a system to automatically transmit data from labs to farmOS in that granular format - I think that is the ultimate future solution - but it requires all labs to offer it as an option.
What I usually do is create a Lab Test log when I take a sample, and leave it as “Pending” until I get the results back. Then I add the PDF and mark it as done.
As for recording amendments, that can be done using Input logs and Material Quantities. If you want, you can also track inventory of your inputs and increment/decrement them with Purchase and Input logs.
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I presume if they have the soil samples in CSV format that the samples could be uploaded via the new CSV importers? (Assuming the data can be made available as a CSV)
I know myself and @pat worked on something in Node-Red in the past to facilitate this before the CSV importers were introduced.
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Yep that’s possible too! Although it would require a custom CSV importer. The default importers that come with farmOS only support a single quantity.
We recorded a video showing how to create a custom CSV importer: How to build a custom CSV importer in farmOS (video) | farmOS
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Ah Ok, I’ve not looked at them at all yet.
@pats, Node-Red solution will import all of the quantities using the API and subrequests if I remember correctly, but maybe he can share how well they’ve worked out.
Edit: Just watched the video, it doesn’t look to taxing to develop the custom CSV importers as needed either.
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I’m also involved with a group at Purdue who is working on a CSV importer that would (in theory) be familiar with lots of different soil testing lab CSV formats, and would convert them to Modus JSON. Modus is a standard format for lab tests to be sent to farm management information systems from labs, used by a number of labs already. We have started building a Modus module for farmOS that can parse Modus JSON and create lab tests from it. All of this is a work in progress, but exciting possibilities!
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