Agroanalytics is a Farm Management System. It enables you to store and process much data about fields, crop rotation, materials, etc. It also lets you plan, monitor, and analyze all activities on your farm easily.
When you log in to the Angoanalitics, this is your home screen, which shows you basic up to date information about the acreage of your fields, the crops you grow and the crop rotation at your farm (by year, by crops, and by the variation of crops).
Before using your Agroanalytics account daily, you must add all of your resources: fields, crops, machinery, technological operations, materials and staff. Now let's look how you can add them and then how to create the crop rotation and work with plans and activities.
First, you must register all your fields in the system.
Click on "Fields" and then go to "View fields".
You can use "View Fields" to add all your plots into the Agroanalytics account. There are two ways of registering your fields in the system. The quick way is to input them automatically. You can do it if you have your fields in KML format. Just click on the "+" button, fill in the information and then press "Upload from KML". Browse your computer to find the file and press "Open".
You can also create your field manually using special tools.
When the fields have been added to the system you can see them on the map.
You can choose the type of the map (yandex, google, OpenStreetMap) that is the most convenient for you.
Fields are painted in the color of the crops. You can specify the date when you want to view the crop rotation on the fields.
You can also use filters to display your fields . You can filter by fields, crops, and departments. For example, you can enter the name of the field you want to display. You can hide some crops that you don't need to see now or display some of those you've hidden.
Click the name of the field to get all the detailed information about it: the department, the crop, the acreage of the field, the seeding rate, the planned yield, and information about the previous crop. If you click on the "Expenses" button, you can see a full summary of the actual costs for this field (material consumption and costs). It is also possible to display a Gantt chart, where you can see the crop cultivation periods.
At the bottom of the page you can see two switches: "Irrigation" and "NDVI".
If there are any irrigation systems on your fields, you can turn the lever on to see their location.
NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) is the most popular and widespread vegetation index to assess the health of crops and plants. It enables you to monitor fields and crops at any point of the globe using satellite images.
Switch the lever to the right to display the colors of the current NDVI index on the map. A color scale is used for visual assessment: gray color indicates plants with condition below critical (below 0.25); red, yellow, and green colors represent poor, average or excellent biomass development respectively.
The NDVI index is an important aid in precision farming. Agronomists use it to make conclusions about the expediency and timeliness of certain technological operations on the fields. NDVI is almost indispensable for differentiated introduction of mineral fertilizers. Later we will return to this topic again to show you how Agroanalytics can help you with differentiated fertilizing on your farm.
As an extra bonus, you can find several other useful tools, such as "Area calculator" and "Scouting". The Area Calculator makes it easy to calculate the total area of the selected fields, and Scouting shows the notes about the problems in the fields (weeds, pests, diseases) if there were added any.
According to the situation, you can choose the appropriate method of displaying the information about your fields: map view or table view. If you want to use the table view, click the "Field register" button.
Table view is more suitable when you need to analyze data or make a report. It is possible to operate the data flexibly and make reports on most pages in the system. On this page, you can group data by any field, set filters, hide and display columns.
From this page, you can easily go to the Field sheet, which contains detailed information on a specific field.
Here you can see:
· Weather forecast and the history of the weather,
· Indexes of moisture saturation and vegetation in the dynamics (adjust the displayed period by using the mouse wheel),
· NDVI and SMI snapshots for the current and prior dates,
· Operations performed on this field
· Crop rotation (current and historical)
· Yield data
· Yield ratings
I'd like to pay a particular attention to the section "Differentiated introduction of mineral fertilizers".
Now agronomists often set the average doses of the mineral fertilizers to the field whereas in fact the need for them in different parts of the field may differ significantly. As a result, some areas receive too much fertilizers, while others receive too little. This affects greatly the quantity and quality of the crop, fertility and the environment in these areas.
Our system enables agronomists to set different doses of fertilizer for different parts of the field.
This is how it works:
Input a number from 5 to 100; this will determine the size of squares into which the satellite image of your field will be split. Lower numbers will mean more squares, and vice versa. You can use this to adjust the accuracy of calculations.
Also, specify the number of zones (1 to 6). The system will divide the entire range of the NDVI of the field into the number of zones you've set. Then the agronomist sets the application rate for each zone separately. After that the system forms the task map that you can load into a device. When the file is loaded in the machines, they will perform the operations according to the loaded task map.
Machinery
After we have registered the fields, we can register the machinery.
Let's go to "Machinery fleet". Here you can watch and add all of your machinery. To add a new machine click + and fill in the blank fields. Choose the Machinery type, it's fabricator, the registering number and the department. Click "Create" button and the machine will be added to the system.
If you click the particular machine, you'll see all the important information about it.
You can see when it was moving last time and watch the movement track on the map. You can choose any time interval you like.
If you wish you can assign trailed units to your machinery and drivers. Later this will help you reduce the time while planning activities in the system.
After you've added your machinery to the system you can create technological operations. Go to "technological operations"
Click "Add operation" and fill the blank fields.
Choose the Class of the operation (seeding, fertilizing or other), enter operation name, choose unit of work measure, Influencing factor if needed. You can enter a new factor if you haven't found the one you need.
Influencing factor is something that can influence on the production norm or fuel consumption norm, salary and bonuses. For fertilizing you may choose "norm of application", for plowing it may be "the plowing depth".
After you've created the operation you can add the combinations of the main machinery and trailed units that you use in your work activities. For each combination you put norms, work rates and bonuses (work rate, fuel consumption...) in depend of the influencing factor you've chosen earlier.
When you've finished entering your technological operations you can create " Technologies of growing". This means that you enter consequentially one by one all the operations you plan to do while growing your crop. You start with the first cultivation of the soil and finish with harvesting operation. Technologies are created individually for each crop. You can enter material resources which you plan to use while growing the crop here. Then you'll be able to see planned costs for the crop and you'll be able to compare your planned and actual costs.
Here you can see the crops that are in rotation on your farm and add new crops. To add a new crop, click "+" at the bottom of the screen and fill in all the necessary information such as name, period, etc.
You can store and process historical, current or pending crop rotation information. For each crop, all the most important information is available: the growing period, the sowing area, the crop year, and even information about the next operation according to the work schedule. The pie chart on the right side of the screen shows the crop rotation in your farm. You can see the total acreage of each crop.
For each crop, you can get more detailed information by opening the crop view.
Here you can view, add and edit all the necessary information about the crop. And you can set a crop rotation to your fields.
When you want to set a crop rotation to the field you have to enter some information about the crop first:
Then you enter the cultivation goals. You press the + button and print the goal of growing your crop. It may be for sale, for fodder, for seeds and others. You can add as many goals as you wish
At the last step, you must create the "Crop variations". In Agroanalytics you create a crop only once and then you create several "Crop variations" for each crop. Crop variations help you to indicate how one kind of crop differs from another.
When you plant your crop, you may have different purposes of growing it on different fields, you can have different kinds of seeds and apply different seeding rates. Either you can use different technologies while growing. All of these parameters influence greatly the quantity and quality of the harvest. In the terms of our system, these combinations of parameters are called "Crop variations". Crop variations enables to consider the seeding characteristics of a specific crop and to assess the impact of these characteristics on the harvest.
To create a crop variation click + button and set a name of the crop variation, choose a crop and a specific seed, seeding rate, measure, technology.
Now everything is ready to set a crop rotation on the fields.
Go to "crop rotation" and click "Add fields" button.
While setting the crop rotation on the field, you don't link the crop to the field; instead, you link the crop variation. You choose the period, start and end date, the department, and the fields and press "Create" button. The crop rotation of this crop is created.
To see the crop variations on the map you can open hybrid map. For each periods you can see the location of your hybrids (to see the hybrids map go to "growing periods"):
For reference purposes, the system enables you to enter information about the pest protection and fertilizer schedule of the crop and its growth phases, as well as indicate the level of growing conditions. To enter them you also need to press the + button and fill the gaps.
If you go to "Summary information" section you can see the aggregated information about the crop:
At the bottom of a page you can see the information in according to the different variations of the crop (different seeds)
At the top of the page you can see the profitability button.
If you press the button, you can see the expected income of this crop and the expected expenses. As a result you see the profit of growing the crop that you may get.
Here you can see the detailed information that enables you to see how the income and the expenses of the crop were calculated. You can see the total weight of the yield, Gross proceeds (валовая прибыль - the money realized from the sale of the crop), with and without grain losses.
The expected expenses are presented by cost items such as: salary, fuel consumption, mineral fertilizers, seeds and plant protection products.
Our system can visualize crop rotation in the fields.
"Crop rotation view" contains detailed information about crop rotation on each field: field name, culture, predecessor, the sowing area, etc. You can change crop rotation of the field and the sowing area.
Here you can easily operate data, make groups, and apply filters.
Additionally, you can download the report for analysis in Excel:
In our system you are able to store and process data for crops that have a row structure of planting. This is true for gardens and vineyards, etc. For such crops you can create a seeding schemes. You can specify the row width and the distance between the plants in the row. When assigning a crop rotation on a field you can choose the suitable scheme. After the crop rotation has been formed, you see a detailed row structure for each of the fields: the number of rows, the row length, the number of plants in the row.
It is very useful when planning work on vineyards. For example, it is important to determine the need for materials (boards, garters, wire), as well as planning work on the care of vineyards.
Here you can store data about all the agrochemical analysis of your fields. You can input all the detailed information about the content of nutrients in the soil and it's mechanical composition, pH, etc. This information helps you to determine the most and least fertile soil areas. In addition to the crop rotation information, it may help you to decide where to plant your crops next season and to plan fertilizing on your fields.
Usually the laboratories give the results of the agrochemical analysis in the form of statements. You can enter the number of the statement, indicate the sampling horizons, sampling points and its parameters.
You can see all sampling points on the sampling map:
A little later, we plan to implement "fertility zones" in our system. This time the system will create a map with indexes that will show what areas are most suitable for growing a particular crop.
Now let's talk about how you can plan and control your activities in Agroanalytics. First you make a short-term plan. This time the system automatically creates waybills. A waybill is a document which contains all the main information about the activity: the machinery, the period when you perform your activity, the type of technical operation, the field and the driver. Then if it is applicable in your country you can print a waybill and give it to the driver. Here in Russia we do it this way.
While the machinery works you can monitor it's progress. And when it's finished you'll see all the detailed information about the work in your waybills and plans. Now look step by step how all that works.
There are two ways of planning activities in Agroanalytics:
If you plan your activities for a period of 1-10 days it's better to use a short-term plan. If you want to plan the work for 1 shift, it's better to use a shift task. Let's start with a short-term plan
You create a short-term plan if you need to plan the activities in your farm for a period of 1 to 10 days. To create a plan or to watch those you've already created go to "Short-term plan".
to create a new plan click "Add work to plan".
Then step by step you choose the technical operation, the period of the activity, you add the fields, materials if there are any, and machinery.
Now you'll see your new plan in the list of plans.
While the activity is performed in the field you'll see the progress of the operation in a progress bar.
After the work is finished you can see all the brief information about it. You can see:
If the machinery performes any unplanned work on the fields and those fields were not mentioned in the plan for this time period, system will show the information about the work with a mark that it was an unplanned activity:
Due to the fact that the short-term plan contains both planned and actual values for each activity, it is a convenient tool for analyzing.
The other instrument of planning activities is a "Shift task"
A shift task is a tool for planning your activities during one shift.
To create a shift-task or to watch those you've already created go to "Shift task".
To create a new task click "Add task for shift".
Then you choose the department, the day and the number of the shift.
Now you can choose an operation, fields and drivers for each of your machinery that you plan to use during a shift. when everything is ready you press "Confirm"
In this unit you can not only plan your activities but also you can monitor them. If you press the button "Monitoring of active shift" you may see two circles.
The upper circle gives you the information about the planned activities:
The bottom circle gives you the information about the unplanned activities:
When a short-term plan of a shift task is made the system creates waybills for each machine. If you go to "Waybills" you can see All the waybills that were created.
After the job was made you can see all the detailed information about it in the waybill:
Agroanalytics analyses all the activities listed in a waybill for potential problems. If there are any problems the system paints the job record in the appropriate color. For example, the system will color the line in red if the work is carried out on fields where crop rotation is absent. Yellow color - if the work was carried out on the fields where several crops were planted (it is necessary to indicate the crop in which the work was carried out). There also can be some other problems or marks:
You also can edit or add the information about the job into the waybill. For example, it can be very useful when there were any technical problems with navigation equipment. Or just in case you've planned the technical operation but in fact the machinery performed another one. Or you've used another towing equipment. Or you want to add the information about the job that has not any machinery movements - field duty, for example:
The system provides large opportunities for analyzing and making reports. For example you can see the summery information about all of your activities in the work journal.
You can download the report in csv-format for analyzing in excel or you can operate the data by using filters right here on this page.
You can get the analytics of your expenses in the Expense journal.
Here you can see all the expenses of your farm in the context of fields and cost items. You can also download the report.
To control and analyze a sowing and harvesting campaign you can use an informative dashboard. You can see the acreage of the sown/harvested area for each date, the total sown/harvested area, the productivity of the machinery, the acreage in the context of the sowing/harvesting activities, the quantity and cost of the seeds and fertilizers and the need of seeds and fertilizers, etc:
Seeding dashboard:
Harvesting dashboard: