How do you keep records of grows and plants and what do you record?
I know this still may be a little taboo and after a quick search and coming up empty I figured I’d make a thread for it. Im curious to see how people keep their own personal records. I don’t take notes past what you see me post in my logs, but I’m trying to change that.
Taboo? Why?
I use an app on my phone, called Jane. Works great.
I usually keep track of most things on grow journals.
Days germinated/vegging/flip dates
If training I use a different color pipe cleaner for each strain and one pic will keep my memory fresh if labels get lost or rubbed off.
Taboo in that at one point in time it meant harsher penalties if caught, so it was frowned upon.
I’m interested in this topic as well.
Lately I’ve been recording the temp and rh along with the times I took the readings. I also write down gains in height every few days. When I water. When I do a tea plus what’s in it. I note smells as they develope or anything different I notice about them. What about y’all?
Evernote is my best friend. I can jot down a few notes and even snap a picture. All my logs are copied from Evernote.
I also use a giant dry erase wall calendar for my watering schedule. I snap a picture of it in Evernote each month.
I see. I was not aware of that.
Oh shit I need to pay attention to this thread need … not even sure what male I’m collecting pollen from currently! I seem to loose my impomtue plant ID tags need something more reliable! Have a couple of ideas brewing though!
I want ALL the data. I’m not growing right now, and it won’t be for a long time until I’m able to, but when I get it going there will be lots of tedious data taken. Handwritten journals turned into spreadsheets. Nutrient measurements, water temperature and pH, feeding times and amounts. Soil composition, pH, temperature, and PPM. Lights on/off time, distance from canopy, and PPFD at different zones. Ambient temperature, canopy temperature, and temperature of different zones. Relative humidity and VPD of different zones. Plant height and spread. Leaf color at different zones. Pathology notes. Smell. Attitude and general disposition. And much, much more. DATA RULES!!!
I am about to harvest a room and the only note I took was what day I flipped. Everything else is on the fly. I really need some spreadsheets or something because that is the correct way to do it
I don’t keep any track on the grow itself, outside accidents and bills (lights failure, pump failure, renewal of the stuff etc …) but the specimens at different stages.
I’ve started with excel sheets than i overloaded with pics and crashed often, then i started to learn how to use Access, then i’ve finally learned how to develop my tools on different dev softwares. Not a big deal really, our needs are pretty basics a the moment you don’t develop something linked with probes etc … it’s generally just a form to complete with button and arrays allready coded and included in most softwares as templates.
@Fuel I’d like to mess around with some raspberry pi sensors for automated readings. Sounds pretty cool, but I’ve got a lot of studying to do on it. From what I’ve seen it’s not that expensive.
The possibilities are wide and for cheap today yes, it’s a big frustration for me to don’t have the level to digg this side. I can’t dedicate enough time in optimal conditions to learn the requirements. Interresting source codes to digg and to recycle are everywhere now btw.
Dang @McMuffin I think ya forgot the kitchen sink! Lol at times i wish I was like that then again it may seem like to much work and I might loose interest!
I started an OpenOffice spreadsheet during my 2nd grow out of necessity. I can’t remember $h^+ like I used to. It’s been tweaked several times.Notes/actions taken, N-P-K-Mg ppm’s, amount of each nute/gal, pH, TDS, EC, Day/Nite Temp & RH. It’s been invaluable comparing grows when problems arise.
I also made a nutrient PPM calculator, so I can compare ppm levels when varying individual nutrient amounts per gal. OCD, what can I say?
I use Accurite temperature/humidity sensors that are $15 each, and then an RTL/SDR dongle ($20 or $30) on my PC to read the 433 mHz signal to get temperature and humidity readings into a simple text file. Then I wrote a PHP script to parse the text file data and use Chart.js to plot the temps out by the hour for each day. No need to figure out Raspberry PI. Just slap two AA batteries into the thermometer and put it where ever you want it. Then your PC can read the signal from up to 100 or so feet away using the software defined radio USB dongle.
It’s nice because I can keep an eye on temps even when I’m at work.
I have been looking at Raspberry PI for soil moisture sensors, though. But I haven’t gotten up the nerve to dive into that just yet. There are a bunch of HowTos for soil moisture sensors on Arduino or Raspberry PI, though. If I could find a soil moisture sensor that transmitted on 433 mHz that would be awesome, I’d rather avoid having to figure out RPI or Arduino.
Great topic… I like pen&paper, so for me moleskine diaries are the best… 
…
I’m kind of data addict, so I’m logging following:
That is only in case I need it when some problems arise.
Hola Gang
Being on a Mac I used Filemaker
for seeds collection and descriptions
and I also used Mac Calendar really great
to keep track of grow and flower period
also polination time.
Bare
Great topic. I have been using an app on my android tablet called “Grower Helper” (It’s a Freebie). It is not very user friendly at first, but I have gotten the hang of it.
I have to use it since my memory is crap these days. I log all waterings: (i.e. amount, pH, nutrients) and transplants, light changes etc. Then I can scoll the plant history on the timeline screen.
I would like to get a more robust and user friendly professional app for Android or even Windows OS if someone has recommendations for me to check out.
I use Jane (Android app). It is a freebie too, but maybe worth checking out.
