(1855) Wed 30 Dec 92 18:15 By: John Mudge To: Jeff Burns Re: Software St: 1800<>1921 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @MSGID: 1:352/111 2b41eb17 @REPLY: 1:346/16.0 2b3df288 @PID: GED 2.40 Hello Jeff! Sunday December 27 1992, Jeff Burns writes to John Mudge: JB> I would like to see a program(s) that first of all I could enter the JB> dimensions of my land and the draw in the fields, so that I could use that JB> for crop rotations and planning. I have a four acre field out back and JB> right next to it is a 1.86 acre field. Coming in toward the house There JB> is a .66 acre asparagus field, and a bout a half an acre I've been using JB> for a market garden. I'm tearing up the asparagus field and I'm going to JB> use that to expand the market garden. On the other side of the house is JB> 1.33 acres that I want to put into permanent raised beds for the mesclun JB> mix business. PLATCHEK.ZIP will take surveyors notes as input, and plot the land on screen or printer to a scale you specify. It is available here. Also...the nodelist still has an incorrect phone number for your bbs, so I am unable to contact you that way. I will test the various screen grabbers I have, looking for one to capture the screen plat with so that it can be modified with a paint program. JB> Now that I've explained all of that... I would like a program that would JB> help me manage an 8 year crop rotation program, along with the ability to JB> figure out what we would need as far as inputs. For example, I follow JB> peas, beans one year with corn the next. Corn is a heavy feeder of JB> nitrogen, how much extra nitrogen will be needed above that which was JB> fixed by the peas and beans to come out with a good crop of corn. Now I JB> could wait until the following spring and do a soil test but there are two JB> problems with that. 1. Spring soil samples aren't all that accurate. 2. I JB> may want to use fresh manure and let it sheet compost over the winter. I would need formulas for calculating input in order to do this. A spredsheet could easily handle it, given formulas. I have some good small ones, INSTA.ZIP being my personal favorite since it can be loaded as a TSR, or run as a standard program with command line input. Do you have formulas? JB> I'm sure this makes things clear as mud to you, but I'm trying to give an JB> example of what I would like a small farm software package to do for me. JB> Something else of great importantance would be a more expanded data base JB> than what I have now. For example, It's good to have varieties, JB> greenhouse start dates, transplant or planting dates, pH, harvest date, JB> comments ect. But I wold also like to see pounds per acre, avg. $/ pound, JB> $ per acre, cost/pound, ect. This would be extremely benificial in the JB> following years planning. GARDPRO.ZIP, FARMECON.ZIP (U. Minnesota), and GARDDB.ZIP all seem to have some of these capabilities, but I might suggest a Database such as POPDBF.ZIP which can be loaded as a TSR, or run as a standard program. POPDBF and INSTA can import/export each other's files, so calculations would be done in the spreadsheet, and exported to DBASE3 format for POPDBF to display for you. JB> Maybe we could get some others input into this and find someone who could JB> write a shareware program that would incorporate all of the features that JB> we all need. There are several potential customers just on this echo, but JB> most small farms that I know ARE computerized and I think this kind of JB> software had the potential to do really well. Seems like a fairly simple BASIC program could be written to interface all of these parts. If I could get all of the formulas necessary, I would be happy to write it...but only as a free (public domain) program. John Mudge --- FMail 0.92 * Origin: >point MUDGE bbs * Shelton, WA USA< (1:352/111) @PATH: 352/111 11 138/112 13/13 151/1003 1000 103 501