I’m trying to design a feature i’ve wanted for a while, it tracks the progress of your grow to make it easy to see things like ‘these said they take 12 weeks from flower to finishing, yours have been in 13 weeks now…’ as well as compare them to prior grows and get info like ‘you’ve grown these seeds 6 times and with the new lights it’s growing much faster’ or ‘this variety is growing faster than any other you’ve tried but the yield is lower’ as well as things like ‘grows where the temperature dipped below 10C took 12% longer on average to flower’ (all those are random numbers btw).

I’d like to have it so the log and gui tools are generated based on a template file, there’d be an online repo which you can select templates from or upload your own to for others to use, hopefully we’d get a good selection of useful options that way and it could be great for doing citizen science community projects like all recording the same log info then comparing at the end.

Here’s how i see it working for users;

User presses a button to start a new plant log, they select a template based on the plant type (preloaded, downloaded or custom) this loads a blank form with the initial questions ready to be filled in (appropriate type for the field - dropdown, date picker, text input, check boxes).

When the initial information is input the program generates a simple graphic display showing progress, as time progresses the user reports events (either through the GUI, messaging apps, or etc) which get added to the log and displayed in the graphic - also optionally included is log information from the growbox, high-low temps, humidity, soil moisture level, watering times, etc.

There will also be optional features to have periodic visual inspections, it will message the user through the selected means (in app notifications, push notifications, message to reddit/lemmy user, LED activation, etc) the user will then input the required information - for example; leaf / node count, height, general health / appearance, etc. This allows creation of more interesting data-points to graph and can hopefully be integrated with tools like CV node counting at a future date. The idea is to log things which can help compare future grows of the same seed type or to compare variants.

When the grow is complete the user will select the option to end grow (selecting if it was harvested, moved, failed optionally selection a rating) the data is packaged with other appropriate data and stored. When the user starts the same type of grow again they will be able to show comparisons with other grows - e.g. drawing out markers when prior grows were switched to flower and how long after that until they were harvested. This should make it much easier to notice what negatively and positively affects growing, what certain traits are associated with and seeing how new equipment (especially lights) changes the growth rate and yield.

example

Plant log

plant type : Cannabis - photoperiod (name of the form preset used) plant name / ID : sum23cheese1 (unique plant identifier, default suggestion is autogen from date, type and numeric) seed origin : named seedbank seed type : the strain name, feminised notes: a text string used to put any info about the plant worth noting, copy paste of seed blurb or important details

grow medium : soil

expected growth duration : seed - 1-2 weeks veg - 2 months flower - 2 months

seed planting date : 14th June 2023

stuff logged through duration –

date transfer into current box : [cultivation, veg, flower]

prune log : date + what was done [trim, top, tie] + notes

date light duration change : aug302023 - 12:12 new ratio (on:off)

observation log : [problem noticed [bugs, discolouration, mold], new features [first true leaves, first flowers]

user measured : [every week] height = 45cm

harvested date : [date of actual harvest] opinion based rating : 7/10 final plant weight : optional dried yield weight : optional