Pest control
- Lite Farm
Description
Pest control is a very broad category of methods used to control a very broad number of pests on a farm. Methods run the gamut from manual (e.g. with the hand) removal, biological, poisoning (e.g. pesticides / herbicides) and many other methods. Pests can be animals, plants, insects, bacteria, viruses, fungi and other less well known types. This wikipedia article is a good high level introduction to agricultural pest control.
Many types of certifications, including Organic require recording all inputs (see Certifications, certifiers, and LiteFarm for more information). Not all pest control methods utilize inputs, so it’s important to distinguish methods that do.
Creation restrictions
Step | Restrictions |
|---|---|
Task date | None |
Task location(s) | None |
Involves crops? | None |
Task assignment | None |
Creation attributes
Attribute | Data type | Required? | Example data | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
What pest(s) are you trying to control? | Text | No | “Some sort of green beetle” | Users may or may not know details about the specific pest or pests they are trying to control. |
Pest control method | Enum: {“Biological control”, “Flame weeding”, “Foliar spray”, “Hand picking”, “Pruning”, “Soil fumigation”, “Systemic Spray”, “Traps”, “Other”} | Yes | Flame weeding | Needs to have info text for “Don’t see your method? It may be elsewhere in the app. For example, tillage, row covers, and mulching can be documented through a field work task. Still not finding it? Create a support ticket!”
Product, Supplier, Amount, and Listed in permitted substances list are only shown when one of the following are selected:
|
Other method | Text | Only if “Other” selected in Pest control method |
|
|
Product | Text | Yes | Neem oil | See Inputs for more details on this interaction |
Quantity | Decimal (w/ unit) | Yes | 33 ml | 0 - 9999. Ideally allows the user to choose either mass or volume Unit displays. |
Supplier |
| Organic | Jerry’s Organic Jungle | Upon saving a pest control task, the product, supplier, and permitted substances should be written to a table per the guidance in Inputs with a type of “Pest control”. These values can be pre-populated in the future from that table. |
Listed in permitted substances list? | Enum: {“Yes”, “No”, “Not sure”} | Organic AND farm in Canada | No | Upon saving a pest control task, the product, supplier, and permitted substances should be written to a table per the guidance in Inputs with a type of “Pest control”. These values can be pre-populated in the future from that table. |
Task notes | Text | No |
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Completion attributes
The following attributes are new when marking a task as completed.
Attribute | Data type | Required? | Example data | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Did you make any changes to this task? | Enum: {“Yes”, “No”} | Yes; defaulted to no |
| All other fields are read-only unless “Yes” is selected. “Continue” becomes enabled after “Yes” or “No” is selected. |
The following attributes are retained from creation and edit and can be updated when marking a fertilizing task as complete.
Attribute | Data type | Required? | Example data | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
What pest(s) are you trying to control? | Text | No | “Some sort of green beetle” | Users may or may not know details about the specific pest or pests they are trying to control. |
Pest control method | Enum: {“Biological control”, “Flame weeding”, “Foliar spray”, “Hand weeding”, “Pruning”, “Soil fumigation”, “Systemic Spray”, “Traps”, “Other”} | Yes | Flame weeding | Needs to have info text for “Don’t see your method? It may be elsewhere in the app. For example, tillage, row covers, and mulching can be documented through a field work task. Still not finding it? Create a support ticket!”
Product, Supplier, Amount, and Listed in permitted substances list are only shown when one of the following are selected:
|
Other method | Text | Only if “Other” selected in Pest control method |
|
|
Product | Text | Yes | Neem oil | See Inputs for more details on this interaction |
Quantity | Decimal (w/ unit) | Yes | 33 ml | 0 - 9999. Ideally allows the user to choose either mass or volume Unit displays. |
Supplier |
| Organic | Jerry’s Organic Jungle | Upon saving a pest control task, the product, supplier, and permitted substances should be written to a table per the guidance in Inputs with a type of “Pest control”. These values can be pre-populated in the future from that table. |
Listed in permitted substances list? | Enum: {“Yes”, “No”, “Not sure”} | Organic AND farm in Canada | No | Upon saving a pest control task, the product, supplier, and permitted substances should be written to a table per the guidance in Inputs with a type of “Pest control”. These values can be pre-populated in the future from that table. |
Migration guidance
“Pest control” logs with the following type values should be migrated as shown.
Previous value | New value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Target | What pest(s) are you trying to control? | As text |
Date | Date |
|
Locations | Locations |
|
Type: Systemic spray | Pest control method: Systemic spray |
|
Type: Foliar spray | Pest control method: Foliar spray |
|
Type: Hand pick | Pest control method: Hand weeding |
|
Type: Biological control | Pest control method: Biological control |
|
Type: Burning | Pest control method: Flame weeding |
|
Type: Soil fumigation | Pest control method: Soil fumigation |
|
Type: Heat treatment | N/A | No records on production |
Product | Product | As text |
Quantity | Quantity |
|
Notes | Completion notes |
|
Other context
We’ve created a bit of an artificial barrier by calling something a “pest control method”. In reality, there are many practices that farmers will employ that provide multiple beneficial outcomes. For example, putting down mulch makes it much harder for weeds to become established (e.g. pest control) while also keeping more moisture in the soil (e.g. a soil amendment) and can be part of preparing a bed for planting (e.g. field work). For situations like this, we’ll include the task in each place so users can find it in the context they’re searching for it.