Tracking Grain location

Using farmOS
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I’m new to farmOS and while I’ve poked around looking for the solution and played with the UI, I can’t seem to get it to do what I want.

I just want to have my grains, what field it came off, and where it is located (and how much). So for instance I planted feed barely, and it came off 1 quarter section, and resides in two bins. If I select the asset “feed barley” then use the quantaty and move half the bushels to a bin. It moves everything? And if I go to my structures (bins) it doesn’t actually show me what is in that bin and how much of it.

This is like the most basic use case so I assume I’m missing something huge here. I love the concept of logging everything and tracking everything but I seem to be missing the basic “this bin has this much of this product in it” and that’s driving me crazy.

Any help would be appreciated! A youtube playlist or something for us cereal crop farmers…

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Hi @mrousseaux welcome to the farmOS community! :slight_smile:

Here is one way to model it:

  1. Create a Plant asset to represent the barley while it is growing. Use a Seeding log to record when and where it was planted (this will be a “movement” of the Plant asset to the Land asset that it is growing in).
  2. Create Product assets to represent the harvested grain in each bin (install the Product asset module to make this asset type available). For example: “Feed barley - Bin 1“ and “Feed barely - Bin 2”.
  3. When you harvest, create a Harvest log that references the Plant asset in the Assets field. Add two Quantities to the log that record the amount of harvested grain (with a value and units) that went into each bin. Make these Quantities “inventory adjustments” (install the Inventory module if you need to) that increment the inventory of “Feed barley - Bin1” and “Feed barley - Bin 2”. Make sure that log is marked as “Done”.

When you look at your “Feed barley - Bin1” and “Feed barley - Bin 2” assets, you will see that they have a current inventory displayed that matches what you recorded in the Harvest log. Now you can make additional logs that adjust the inventory of each separately. For example, you can record a Sale log (with the Ledger module installed) that decrements the inventory if you sell the grain, or an Input log if you use the grain to feed your animals.

In this way, you can use Assets to represent the things you are managing, and those may change/transform into new assets. In this example, the Plant asset becomes two Product assets, which can be managed separately.

These same concepts can be applied for other types of workflows too. Imagine that instead of Plant assets we have Animal assets (milking cows) and there are daily Harvest logs that increment a milk tank Structure asset.

It’s up to you what types of assets you use to represent everything, and how granular or detailed you want to get with them. For example, you could use Structure assets to represent your bins, and just increment inventory on those directly, rather than using a Product asset. Or you can have both, and set the location of your Product assets to the bins. You can experiment and find what works best for you, and archive old assets if you find a better strategy. Lots of ways to slice it, depending on what you need.

Hopefully this example gets you going! Happy to brainstorm other use-cases or requirements if this doesn’t work for you.

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Thank you very much for the information! You are right I had missed the “plant” asset which did make things a bit easier to understand. One thing though that maybe you can help give me an idea for is if a crop produces more than expected. So my example here is barley, we had more than expected so had to put some in another bin. It’s still the same “crop” from the same planting so any logs applied to that plant asset would be the same.

I guess what I was hoping for was a “there is this much of this crop in this bin” but if I have to change my workflow to better match the idea that each asset can only reside in one location, then perhaps the group module is what I would want? Then I can create an asset group for a planting and then if that harvest produces more than expected all I have to do is create additional sub assets under the group (2025 barley west field 01, 2025 barley west field 02). From there I can move the individual assets around as needed into different bins, but then any logs from inputs, seeding, etc can stay at the group level? Am I understanding that right?

Also the ledger module you mentioned, I don’t see that in the list of modules to enable, is there a community store area I can find modules to install?

Thanks again for the response I do like this software so far I just have to wrap my head around the workflows.

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It sounds like you want to know two things:

  1. How much grain did my Plant asset produce?
  2. How much grain do I have in my bins?

For the first one, you can go to Assets > Plant, find the Plant asset, view all the Harvest logs for it, and add up the quantities to see how much it produced.

For the second one, you can go to Assets > Product, and see the current inventory of each product asset (which represent grain in a particular bin).

Notably, your Harvest logs should NOT move the Plant asset to the bins (they should not have the “Is movement” box checked”).

After harvest, you would archive your Plant asset, and then you’re just managing your Product assets (the two bins), because the Plant asset (which represents the plants in the ground) is gone and what you now have is one or more new assets (which represent the harvested grain).

Like I said, it’s up to you what type of asset you want to use to represent the harvested grain. You could make them a Product asset, or a Seed asset, or a Material asset - it’s really up to you - and that might be determined by how you plan to use them in the future.

Do you sell your grain to an elevator? Then it might make sense to use Product assets to represent it.

Do you replant the harvested grain as seed the following year? Then maybe a Seed asset makes sense.

Do you manage other Material assets, and prefer to see everything together? Use a Material asset.

The point is: create separate assets to represent the “plants in the ground” and the “harvested grain”, in whatever way makes the most sense for your workflow and how you plan to manage things after harvest.

I wouldn’t recommend the Group module for this - that adds a layer of complexity that I don’t think you need.

The Group module was originally added to represent herds of Animal assets, so they could be moved as a group instead of individually. Some people have used it for other things as well, but based on what you’re describing I don’t think it’s necessary.

Are you self-hosting? You can download and install the Ledger module with the following commands:

composer require drupal/farm_ledger
drush en farm_ledger

(How you run those depends on your environment, whether you are using Docker, etc).

If you’re using Farmier hosting, then you can install Ledger (and other approved community modules) at https://[your farmOS URL]/setup/modules.

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I am self hosting so I will fix that thanks!

and okay that makes sense, I just need to separate the assets from growing to harvested. Thanks!

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