Is it possible to plant multiple beds at once?

Using farmOS
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New user looking at farmOS during free 30 day trial. We plant by number of beds in a field, so I defined beds in my fields.

Is there a way to select a bunch of beds (e.g., beds 1-10 and 15-25) to have one crop planted in them? Entering all the bed names takes too long, especially since I had to make longer field names to distinguish which ranch the field was located in.

I defined different ranches as different properties, but the fields in a property do not pick up the name of the property the way the beds in a field pick up the name of the field, so I made field names long enough to identify what ranch the field is in. (Side note: Supervisors should see only their own ranch data, and I don’t see a way to limit the view for a user to a specific property.)

I considered defining beds or rows as a taxonomy unit, so I can tell the guy on the tractor to plant 12 rows in a particular field, but it doesn’t appear that would get me an area associated with a planting. (Can’t do yield calcs on plantings that don’t have an area.)

Any comments or suggestions?

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Hi @dorelle - it is possible for a Planting to be located in multiple beds, yes.

The way this is represented in farmOS is: you have either a Seeding log or Transplanting log that references the Planting asset, and references the area(s) that they are located in (which can be one or more beds).

Is there a way to select a bunch of beds (e.g., beds 1-10 and 15-25) to have one crop planted in them? Entering all the bed names takes too long, especially since I had to make longer field names to distinguish which ranch the field was located in.

What method are you using for creating your planting? The Planting quick form? Or creating the Planting and logs manually? I think that the Planting form only supports single area references currently, but there is a pending pull request to extend that to allow multiple areas.

In the meantime, you can edit the log manually and add the additional areas. It’s a bit tedious. In the future, we’d like to make this easier with a more feature-rich “crop planning UI” that puts all of this in one place so it’s easy to make adjustments.

Side note: Supervisors should see only their own ranch data, and I don’t see a way to limit the view for a user to a specific property.

This is not currently a feature, but it is something that we’ve discussed. If you’d like to open a feature request we can start to officially document the requirements: Issues · farmOS/farmOS · GitHub

I considered defining beds or rows as a taxonomy unit, so I can tell the guy on the tractor to plant 12 rows in a particular field, but it doesn’t appear that would get me an area associated with a planting. (Can’t do yield calcs on plantings that don’t have an area.)

Another potential approach you could take (depending on your setup): you can create a log that references the larger area (the field), and then use the Geometry field to draw specifically which section of that field was planted, without needing to define all the separate rows/beds within that field. This means the log will have a polygon geometry on it, from which the area can be derived.

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Thanks for the comments, Mike

I do have a response to your idea of using the geometry field as a way to identify the area in multiple rows of a field: I don’t see a practical way to draw that.

In google maps, you can see how long your line is, so it’s relatively easy to figure out how long the line needs to be for the number of rows you want. Then when
you draw lines all the way around and complete the polygon, you have an area.

But in farmOS you have to choose either a line or a polygon first. If you choose a polygon, it doesn’t tell you how long your line is, but you get an area at
the end. If you choose a line so you can see the length, it doesn’t turn into a polygon when you finish drawing lines all the way around. If it did, I could see that as a possible way to plant rows.

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I should probably also mention that even defining beds in farmOS may not useful. I defined 51 beds in one small test field (the actual number)), and the list
takes up the entire areas page. There are a lot of fields at the different ranches, with a lot of beds in each of them, so I am doubting this is a viable approach to defining my database.

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Hey Mike,

How many logins do I need? I have one for my farm’s farmOS, another one for the farmOS discourse group so I can look at the discussions of how to use farmOS.
Apparently I need another login to post an issue. What other logins do I need? How many logins are there?

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Oh that’s an interesting point @dorelle, regarding using the polygon tool to draw beds, but wanting to see the length of the bed sides as you draw.

One possible workaround I can think of: first draw a line next to the bed to get the measurement you want, then draw a polygon next to the line, and then delete the line. Couple of extra steps, but maybe it would help.

I should probably also mention that even defining beds in farmOS may not useful.

To each their own. Some like/need this level of granularity in their data, but it is certainly not required.

I defined 51 beds in one small test field (the actual number))

Did you use the Bed Generator? Or draw all by hand?

and the list takes up the entire areas page. There are a lot of fields at the different ranches, with a lot of beds in each of them, so I am doubting this is a viable approach to defining my database.

If the length of the Areas page is the only issue, then you may be interested in this feature request: https://www.drupal.org/project/farm/issues/2957726

How many logins do I need? I have one for my farm’s farmOS, another one for the farmOS discourse group so I can look at the discussions of how to use farmOS.
Apparently I need another login to post an issue. What other logins do I need? How many logins are there?

Those are all separate services, so they require separate logins. farmOS itself can have any number of user account logins that you want (for everyone involved on your farm), which are unique to you. And as an open-source community project, we rely on GitHub, Discourse, Matrix.org, and other free services to support community processes. We can’t maintain everything ourselves. Ideas for making this smoother for newcomers are always welcome. :slight_smile:

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Oh my goodness, I used the bed generator to draw the beds. No way I would even consider drawing beds by hand. But it does bring up the point that I would only want to define my fields once, although the crops that are planted and the number of beds for each crop in each field are constantly changing.

I think a list of all the services and what we might want to use them for would help newcomers.

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But it does bring up the point that I would only want to define my fields once, although the crops that are planted and the number of beds for each crop in each field are constantly changing.

Yes! That’s how it will work. You draw the Areas once in the beginning and then you create “Plantings” that are located in those Areas. The Plantings are archived at the end of the season (or whenever you no longer need to actively manage them), but the Areas remain the same. And then you can click on an Area to see what was planted there in previous areas, while managing your new Plantings from year to year.

I think a list of all the services and what we might want to use them for would help newcomers.

This could be a great thing for folks to work on at the It’s My farmOS Day! Thanks for the suggestion! I will cross-reference this on the forum post for that: It's My farmOS! - #8

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The difficulty I see in defining my fields only once, is that the number of beds (and their exact length) do differ a bit, depending upon who is driving the tractor, from one crop to the next. That means I might need to add or subtract a bed or two from the field each time it is replanted. I assume I could do that manually. I noticed that the bed generator didn’t show exactly 51 beds on the map, anyway. At a minimum, I would need to be able to enter fractions of a degree to get the map picture correct, and it wouldn’t be worth the effort.

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In the future, I want to add the ability to “Archive” areas in the same way you can archive assets. So that if you need to, you can redraw the beds from year to year to accommodate those changes. This is not currently possible, but is on the roadmap.