How Harvest works

Where things stand

There is no service to sign in to yet. The orchard app is not open, so there is nothing to download or log in to.

What exists is the code that works out each answer: withholding periods, stock on hand, scab, frost, heat, codling moth degree-days, spray windows and the irrigation run sheet. Each part has automated tests. The Today screen is written but not yet connected to this code, so no screen shows these answers yet. The other screens, sign-in and setting up your own farm come next.

The only orchard in the code is the Orrvale demo orchard. It is fictional, and so are its blocks and products.

What data it uses

Weather

Hourly temperature, humidity, rain, wind, evaporation (FAO ET0) and leaf-wetness probability for the farm's location, from Open-Meteo. Past days are stored from 1 July so the season's water balance and scab history can be worked out. Open-Meteo figures are weather-model values, not readings from a station on your farm.

The demo orchard shows recorded sample weather, labelled Sample weather, not live. Live weather for a real farm waits until we hold a commercial weather licence. coming

Your records

Blocks: crop (apple, pear or stone fruit), variety, area, planting year, soil class, root depth, irrigation type and application rate.
Products, as each label states them: name, APVMA number, active ingredient, withholding period for each crop, and a stocktake if you want stock on hand.
Spray records: blocks, time, rate as entered, operator, quantity used and notes.
Irrigation you have applied.

Your settings

Location, time zone, water price, power tariff, pump details, frost and heat thresholds, the rain that holds a run, spray-window bands, budbreak and the codling moth biofix. Each threshold starts at a stated default, and the defaults are assumptions that need an agronomist's check before a real orchard relies on them.

Soil-moisture probes, if you have them

A probe tied to a block, with its full and refill points entered, can reset that block's water balance. A reading more than 6 hours old is ignored. Connecting probes on a real farm comes later. coming

How each answer is worked out

Withholding period and earliest harvest

For each spray record on a block, Harvest takes the longest withholding period among its products for that crop and counts that many days from the spray, at the same local clock time. The block's earliest harvest is the latest of those dates. A voided record does not count.

If a record is missing a withholding period, or has one that is not a whole number of days, the block shows unknown, check label. One unknown record makes the block unknown, even when every other record is clear. A block with no sprays shows no spray recorded.

Stock on hand

Your last stocktake, less each recorded use after it in the same unit. A use in another unit, or with no quantity, gives unknown (check stock).

Apple scab

An hour is wet when leaf wetness is 50% or more, any rain falls, or humidity is 90% or more. A run of wet hours ends after 10 dry hours. The average temperature of the run is compared with the Mills and La Plante table (UC IPM), which is on the front page. The season runs from budbreak to 31 December. A period that reaches into the forecast is marked as forecast.

Missing hours make a period's result unknown and the whole check incomplete. Below 5.6 °C the result is unknown; above 25.6 °C it is not assessed. Every alert starts Advisory: UC IPM Mills and La Plante table; not validated in Australia. Pear scab is not assessed.

Frost, heat and codling moth

Frost: the lowest forecast temperature from now to 9 am, and from 6 pm to 9 am for the three nights after, against your threshold (2 °C to start). Heat: the highest hourly temperature each day for the coming week, against your threshold (35 °C to start). Codling moth: degree-days from your biofix, base 10 °C, upper 31 °C. A night, day or total with missing data says so.

Spray windows

Hours today and tomorrow with Delta T between 2 and 8 °C, wind between 3 and 20 km/h, and no rain forecast in that hour or the two after it. Each window carries The product label governs.

Tonight's irrigation run

Each block keeps a daily water balance from 1 July, or from the day it was added: evaporation times a crop factor for the stage of the season, less rain of 5 mm or more in a day, less the irrigation you log. When the balance reaches the block's refill point, the run sheet gives the millimetres, the hours at the block's application rate and the megalitres, and a start time in the off-peak tariff.

If 5 mm or more of rain is forecast in the next 24 hours, it holds the run and shows what the run would have been. If the forecast is missing or incomplete, it says not assessed. Costs appear only when you have entered a water price and pump details. Each run sheet carries a confidence. It is low, for example, in a block's first 7 days, when weather days are missing, or when the soil values come from the soil class alone.

What Harvest does not do

It does not recommend products, rates or doses. You enter what the label says and what you applied. Harvest records it and works out dates from it.
It does not switch anything. It controls no pump, valve, fan or sprayer. A run sheet is a proposal, and you decide whether to run it.
It does not send messages yet. Alerts by email or text message, for people who choose them, are designed. coming
It uses no AI in this build. All wording comes from fixed templates. A later, optional assistant would explain a result in plain words. It would sit beside the result, never change it, and never name a product, rate or harvest date. coming
It is not checked for Australian conditions yet. The scab table is from California, and the crop factors, thresholds and spray bands are starting assumptions. They need an agronomist's check before a real orchard relies on them.

Privacy basics

This website

These pages have no forms, no scripts and no analytics, and set no cookies of their own. They load nothing from anyone else. The only way to send us anything from here is an email you choose to write.

The app, as designed coming

You sign in through Clerk, a sign-in provider. Only people the farm's owner invites can see that farm, and each person has a role.
Your farm's data is treated as yours and used only to run the service.
Harvest's data is stored with Amazon Web Services in Sydney. Some services we use, such as Clerk, may handle your details outside Australia; the privacy notice will name them.
You can export your farm's data, delete a farm, and delete your account. Deleted data can stay in encrypted backups for up to 35 days. Spray records are always exported before a farm is deleted.
The optional assistant would be sent the day's results with farm and block names replaced by labels, no names, emails or phone numbers, and the location rounded.
Card details, once there are paid plans, go to Stripe and never reach Harvest.

A full privacy notice and pilot terms will be published before any real farm's data goes in.

How the pilot works

The pilot is free. It is for Victorian apple and pear orchards, and runs for one season. The season we are planning for is 2027–28.

What each side does will be set out in a written pilot agreement. That agreement is a draft and has not yet been reviewed by a lawyer. draft As drafted:

Harvest runs in monitoring and advice mode only. You keep manual control of all equipment.
Harvest does not recommend chemical products or rates. You and your applicators stay responsible for labels, permits and withholding periods.
The farm data belongs to you. We do not sell it or pass it on without your written consent, except to services that help run Harvest or where the law requires.
You give us about 30 minutes of feedback a week, and we give you a written season report at the end.

Before a pilot orchard goes in, the screens, sign-in and live weather listed as coming above have to be built.

Questions

Write to support@example.com. Tell us about your orchard, or about anything on these pages that looks wrong.