I do prehistoric style cave drawing pictographs on my bedroom wall. For history.
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Thereās no one best way @Foreigner. If youāre using crayons you can get a really nice shading detail by taking the paper off and using the crayon sideways. Good luck!
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Been using Jane but might give this a go, f droid apps have my heart
Thank you but Iām a purist and only work with smeared animal feces.
Seriously though, I just use OG.
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Jeez LD, youāre an Excel guru. Beautiful work
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I was using spreadsheets for the first 6 months of growing but they quickly got out of hand. I built my own software and itās been awesome. I learned so much. I have made several rounds of big changes but I still have many planned changes coming. As I have used it for almost 2 years I have learned what I really need to log and how to make it easy enough that I will log things regularly. Originally I was tracking many more things but some just got to be to much to log every day. Things like waterings donāt get logged. However, things like topping, defoliation, feeding, changing environments, photos, harvest dates/estimates are all incredibly useful to be able to look up. Every log calculates the number of days since that action so I can quickly look it up. Other I useful features are the ability to see my seedbank, plants by environment, plants by strain, upcoming harvest list, plant counts by environment/strain/type. I made it as a website so I can access it from any device and even grant others access to it. This also allows me to provide a mobile theme so it works well on a phone or tablet.
I would never be able to grow how and what I do without this software. It allows me to quickly log everything important and then display it any way I can imagine later. The first year I focused on collecting the right data and the last year I been making that data useable it different ways.
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@Greenup Were you using any macro functions when you had excel doing the work? 100% excel is ānot the bestā in terms of most things weāre trying to do. Have it send commands to an Arduino if you really want to hate itās guts!! Well, love/hate is the best term for it.
Iād LOVE to know more here. What programming language are you using? Are you ok with sharing some screenshots?
No. But i was using drop down selects for things that would then color code the row. I also used some functions that would take a an entered log date and calculate the days since. Other than that it became like 20 tabsā¦ one for seed bank, one for tradable seed bank, one for veg, one for flower, one for plans, one for each environment, it got to be too much.
Itās all done using php, twig, javascript, and the Drupal content management system with lots of custom views and content types. This gives me the ability to add and change almost anything about the configuration from any device while laying in bed. For example I am working a new feature where each light I own has an entry in the site with its specs, manuals, etc. I can now assign these to environments and display whatever specs or details I want when showing environment. I have built most of this site without even opening a code editor. There have been some exceptions and the theme layer is not great to work on without a code editor. The āprogrammingā in the traditional sense is pretty light because I am leveraging Drupal and my 15 years of experience with it. There is really no limit to what can be done with Drupal, I have made full mobile apps that used Drupal as the backend and it really makes things fun and easy but has a huge learning curve when you first start.
I would be happy to share some screenshots but its the config and planning behind the scenes that was the fun/tough part. Lots of filters to lists of content so i can quickly display things in any way I want. Like I want to see how many Alien OG plants I have in veg right now, i just go to āmy plantsā and select that from the strain list and apply and I get only AOG plants grouped by environment (and a count of how many).
Types of content used to make this all work.
Environment (tents, rooms, etc): Accepts an image, light reference, light schedule value, notes, plants reference, dimensions.
Strain: Lots and lots of fields here like Fem/Reg, photo/auto, quantity, strain number, thc content, breeder reference, etc
Plant: Environment reference, Expected harvest, format (seed/clone), notes, strain ref, image
Log entries: Action (flip to flower, germinate, etc), photos, log date, notes, plant reference.
I am getting a little deep hereā¦ but thats the important parts.
Now that I am trying to explain the project there is a lot more than I thought to explain so I will leave it here and just post some screenshots and you can ask me questions if you like. I am in the middle of a new visual theme build so things are pretty sparse design wise at the moment.
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Pretty awesome @Greenup !
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Thank you very much for the depth! I know what you mean; itās very tough to convey the work behind the scenes both in itās complexity and how fun it is to tinkerā¦ like all the background work IS the magic and what weāre seeing here makes that all look easy!!
The ng03 picture is a good reference for me to understand the GUI/HMI aspect of the log. I love the way youāre using this for a total journal. I think Iād use it too for the picture keeping alone!!
What would you say is the biggest āimprovementā made to your grows after harvesting this data? Iām guessing the ability to compare grows at the same days/stages is key. Any āahaā moments after creating this wonderful tool?
Actually I have been planning a rework of the photo capabilities. I started by adding that Photos tab that shows all plant thumbnails, and any log photos in one giant grid. This can be filtered by strain. I want to add more filters and grouping and such to display all the photos entered. I also have a google drive with a folder containing any and every cannabis photo from my phone. I try to get them added to the site too but as you can see in the screenshot there are only 378 photos in the log site but I have over 800 in my drive folder.
It allows me to care for many more mothers and clones and in general vegging plants. I would never be able to do it without it. I still donāt keep up with everything even with this tool. I am now gardening 100% organic and reusing my soil. So knowing when i last top dressed a plant is crucial. When I wake up I can view an environment and see with plants havenāt been fed in xx weeks/days. I also love being able to check my harvest tab and see what plants should have the trichomes checked. I typically set the harvest estimate a week or two before I think it will be ready. So then I have a reminder to check and can re-set the estimate to a few days or week out. The number one thing I would say is that it allows me to track the sources of plants. For example, the strain database part of the site allows me to enter notes about where it came from. Then my naming convention and logging by plant, āKush A - 001ā Meaning this is Kush strain, plant A, and its the first clone of plant A. I can quickly see how many clones of this Kush I have so I know how many I can give away to friends and local grow meetup homies. I tend to let things veg way too long and in too small of a pot, so this project helps me move them along with a visual representationā¦ its been 145 days man,ā¦ maybe do something with this plant. Also, seeing you have XX plants alive right now can be shocking to knowā¦ but then I just give away a bunch and all is right in the world. I never do a tent at a time so I am always moving all my plants around between 5-6 environments, so knowing what is where at my fingertips is great.