Hello everyone!
I wanted to create a quick post to welcome folks I met at the Tilth Conference organized by the Washington Tilth Alliance this past weekend in Yakima, WA. This year’s theme was “Growing a Resilient Future: Production and Beyond” - a statement I believe the farmOS and Open Source Ag-Tech community at large is motivated by, too. 
Thanks to our community supporters we used some funds from the farmOS Open Collective to host a table at the conference trade show. It was great to have a professional presence at the conference! I also gave a session titled “Adding Open Source Tools to Your Farming Tool Belt” where we explored the open source model, demoed farmOS, and highlighted our involvement with the OpenTEAM community. I’ve been so excited to share farmOS with friends in the Tilth community 
Here are some of my takeaways from the conference:
- Spreadsheets! It was great to see ways the community is using spreadsheets on the farm. It’s a great tool that is accessible to farmers with varying technical abilities. I hope we can engage with spreadsheet specialists to guide farmOS as we develop more planning and analytical tools - can we improve exports to better fit your spreadsheet? And build crop planning tools based on existing spreadsheets? farmOS is a great companion to spreadsheets!
- Sensors! There was a great talk on Aerated Static Pile Composting. Using blowers to increase the percentage of oxygen in a compost pile gives life to the micro-organisms that do the dirty work. farmOS is great place to store data from temperature sensors in those compost piles and perhaps to even control some of these devices… IoT + farmOS is exciting to think about!
- Record Keeping! I also saw some great examples of on farm record keeping. I heard about ways systems are working, and ways others are not. Please chime in! What do you think of farmOS? What is missing?
- Produce Safety! Requirements are coming! What is the low hanging fruit we can tackle now? farmOS has a Produce Safety Module - what can be added?
What were your takeaways? Have any thoughts on farmOS, or questions? Post them here or anywhere in the forum! Also, feel free to introduce yourself here if you’re so inclined
It was great to connect with you all! Welcome! - Paul
Link to presentation slides
Link to reference sheet