Soil amendment
- Lite Farm
Description
A soil amendment describes the placement of organic or inorganic materials into the soil in order to promote plant growth. This can happen through several different mechanisms, mainly:
Changing the soil structure
Changing the ability for the soil to retain moisture
Changing the nutrient availability
Changing the pH
Under this definition, fertilizers ARE a type of soil amendment. For information on how soil amendments interact with soil and crops you can read this.
Many types of certifications, including Organic require recording all inputs (see Certifications, certifiers, and LiteFarm for more information) so it’s essential that users can record their use of soil amendments in LiteFarm.
Creation restrictions
Step | Restrictions |
|---|---|
2. Task date | None |
3. Task location(s) | None |
4. Involves crops? | None |
5. Task assignment | None |
Creation attributes
Attribute | Data type | Required? | Example data | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purpose | Enum: {“Change soil structure”, “Change soil moisture retention”, “Change nutrient availability”, “Change pH”, “Other”} | No | “Change soil structure; Change pH, Other” | Must be multi-selectable |
Other | Text | Only if “Other” selected in Purpose |
|
|
Product | Text | Yes | Cow manure | This will be persisted and retrieved from an inputs table (see Inputs for more details). |
Quantity | Decimal (w/ unit) | Yes | 3 kilograms | 0 - 9999. Ideally allows the user to choose either mass or volume Unit displays. If not feasible, default to mass. |
Supplier |
| Organic | West Coast seeds | Upon saving a fertilizing task, the fertilizer, supplier, and permitted substances should be written to a table per Inputs. 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 | Yes | Upon saving a fertilizing task, the fertilizer, supplier, and permitted substances should be written to a table per Inputs. These values can be pre-populated in the future from that table. |
Task notes | Text | No | “Make sure to mix in.” |
|
Completion attributes
The following attributes are new when marking a task as completed.
Attribute | Data type | Required? | Example data | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Did you have to 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Product | Text | Yes | Cow manure | For logs, this list was generated from fertilizer_type here. However, in Tasks 2.0 this will be persisted and retrieved from an inputs table (see Inputs for more details). |
Amount | Decimal (w/ unit) | Yes | 3 kilograms | 0 - 9999. Ideally allows the user to choose either mass or volume Unit displays. |
Supplier |
| Organic | West Coast seeds | Upon saving a fertilizing task, the fertilizer, supplier, and permitted substances should be written to a table per Inputs. 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 | Yes | Upon saving a fertilizing task, the fertilizer, supplier, and permitted substances should be written to a table per Inputs. These values can be pre-populated in the future from that table. |
Migration guidance
“Fertilizing” logs should be migrated over as completed tasks as shown.
Previous value | New value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose: “Change nutrient availability” |
|
Date | Date |
|
Locations | Location(s) |
|
Product | Product | Migrated as text |
| Supplier: ““ |
|
| PSL: null |
|
Quantity | Quantity |
|
Notes | Completion notes |
|
Other context
For the purposes of the Q3 2021 release, all legacy fertilizing logs will be migrated over as soil amendment tasks