For Australian apple and pear orchards. The pilot opens soon.
When it isn't sure, it says so.
Harvest is orchard software for apple and pear growers. It keeps your spray diary and works out withholding periods from your own records. It reads the weather for scab, frost and heat, and drafts tonight's irrigation run.
When data is missing, it says so. A withholding period it cannot work out shows as unknown, never as clear.
- B1 Gala withholding until 2026-11-29 07:30
- B2 Pink Lady unknown, check label
- B3 Packham pear clear
- B4 Peach no spray recorded
Built so far
This is the code that works out each answer, with automated tests. The Today screen is written but not yet connected to it, so no screen shows these answers yet. None of it has been through a real orchard's season. That is what the pilot is for.
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Spray diary and withholding periods
You enter each product as its label states it: name, APVMA number, active ingredient, and the withholding period for each crop. A spray record keeps the blocks, the time, the rate as you entered it, the operator and your notes.
Each block's earliest harvest comes from its latest-ending record, using the longest withholding period in it. A 14-day period from a 5 pm spray ends at 5 pm fourteen days later, local time, across daylight saving. A product with no withholding period for that crop cannot be recorded on it. If any record cannot give a date, the block shows
unknown, check label
. -
A diary you can hand over
The diary exports as a spreadsheet file (CSV): one row per block per spray, with products, APVMA numbers, columns for the weather at the time, and the earliest harvest. Voided records stay in the file, with who voided them and why.
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Chemical stock on hand
Enter a stocktake, and each recorded use in the same unit comes off it. A use in a different unit, or with no quantity, makes the figure
unknown (check stock)
rather than a wrong number. -
Apple scab infection periods
An hour counts as wet when leaf wetness is 50% or more, any rain falls, or humidity is 90% or more. A wet period ends after 10 dry hours. Its wet hours and average temperature are checked against the Mills and La Plante table below.
Every scab alert says it is advisory and not validated in Australia. Missing weather hours mark the result incomplete. Pear scab is not assessed.
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Frost and heat
Frost risk tonight from the hourly forecast up to 9 am, and for the three nights after. Hot days over the coming week. You set the thresholds; they start at 2 °C and 35 °C. A night or day with forecast hours missing is marked incomplete.
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Codling moth degree-days
Counts degree-days (base 10 °C, upper 31 °C) from the biofix date you enter, and flags when the total passes about 140. Missing days are flagged, because they make the total low.
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Spray windows
Hours today and tomorrow when Delta T is 2 to 8 °C, wind is 3 to 20 km/h, and no rain is forecast in that hour or the two after it. You can change each band. Every window carries the note
The product label governs.
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Tonight's irrigation run
A daily soil-water balance for each block: evaporation times a crop factor, less rain of 5 mm or more, less the irrigation you log. When a block reaches its refill point, the run sheet gives millimetres, hours at the block's application rate and megalitres, starting in the off-peak tariff.
It holds the run when 5 mm or more of rain is forecast in the next 24 hours. Water and pump costs appear only once you have entered your price and pump details. Soil values taken from the soil class alone are marked low confidence. Without a usable forecast it says
not assessed
. A calibrated soil-moisture probe reading under 6 hours old resets the balance.
The scab table, in the open.
This is the table the scab check uses, as published by UC IPM. A wet period is an infection period when its wet hours reach the figure for its average temperature.
The table comes from California. It has not been validated in Australia, and Harvest says so on every scab alert.
| Average temperature | Wet hours needed |
|---|---|
| Below 5.6 °C42 °F | Result is unknown |
| 5.6 °C42 °F | 30 |
| 6.1 °C43 °F | 25 |
| 6.7 °C44 °F | 22 |
| 7.2 °C45 °F | 20 |
| 7.8 °C46 °F | 19 |
| 8.3 °C47 °F | 17 |
| 8.9 °C48 °F | 15 |
| 9.4 °C49 °F | 14.5 |
| 10.0 °C50 °F | 14 |
| 10.6 °C51 °F | 13 |
| 11.1–11.7 °C52–53 °F | 12 |
| 12.2 °C54 °F | 11.5 |
| 12.8–13.3 °C55–56 °F | 11 |
| 13.9–15.0 °C57–59 °F | 10 |
| 15.6 °C60 °F | 9.5 |
| 16.1–23.9 °C61–75 °F | 9 |
| 24.4 °C76 °F | 9.5 |
| 25.0 °C77 °F | 11 |
| 25.6 °C78 °F | 13 |
| Above 25.6 °C78 °F | Not assessed |
Source: UC IPM, Apple scab, Table 1 (Mills and La Plante). The table is in °F; Harvest rounds the average to a whole °F, and the °C figures here are conversions. The average is the midpoint of the highest and lowest temperature in the wet period.
What it will not do
- Recommend a product, a rate or a dose. It records what you enter. The label governs.
- Switch anything on. It controls no pump, valve or sprayer. A run sheet is a proposal; you decide whether to run it.
- Use AI in this build. All of its wording comes from fixed templates.
- Promise savings. The pilot is there to measure what it does on real orchards before we claim anything.
Still being built
Designed and written up for building. Not built yet.
- The screens, connected to the answers, on a phone or a computer. Today is written; the spray diary, blocks and settings are next.
- Signing in, inviting the people who work on your farm, and a role for each of them.
- Setting up your own orchard without our help.
- Live weather for your farm. For now, only the demo orchard has weather, and it is sample weather, not live.
- Alerts by email or text message, if you choose to get them.
- Exporting your farm's data, and deleting a farm or your account.
- Connecting soil-moisture probes on a real farm.
- An optional AI assistant that explains why a result says what it says. It will not change a result or switch anything.
Who it is for
Apple and pear growers in Australia who irrigate and spray block by block. We are starting in Victoria's Goulburn Valley.
Stone-fruit blocks can go in too, with their own withholding periods and water balance. The scab check covers apple only.
The pilot opens soon.
It is free. We are looking for orchards willing to use Harvest through a season and tell us what works and what does not. Write and tell us about your blocks.
Or write to support@example.com. How the pilot works.