Custom open-field vegetable harvest forecast app
Appfront builds apps that help growers of outdoor vegetables predict, per field, when and how much can be harvested. Based on plant data, field counts and the weather, so that sales, labour and transport are scheduled on time. Not a guess from memory, but a forecast that learns every week.
What is a harvest forecasting app?
A harvest forecasting app combines what you know about a field with what is happening outside. The planting date, variety and plant spacing are fixed. The counts you take during the season show how the crop is doing. The weather, translated into growing days, shows how quickly it will progress. From these three, it produces an expected harvest moment and an expected yield for each field, a week ahead.
Without an app, that forecast lives in the head of the grower or crop advisor, and it is often not far off. The problem is that sales, labour planning and transport cannot see it. A buyer who wants to know what is coming in three weeks gets an estimate over the phone. A forecast held in a system can be shared, and afterwards compared with what was actually harvested.
We build custom solutions because every crop grows differently and every business counts differently. Leek, lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower each have their own relationship between growing days and harvest readiness, and a grower with thirty plots counts differently from a sales organisation with three hundred. The app should follow your crops and the way you count.
Counting in the field
Enter a count per plot on your phone, with a photo, so the forecast rests on real observations.
Weekly forecast
For each plot and crop, the expected harvest timing and volume, added up into a weekly overview for sales.
Learning from the difference
After harvest, the app compares forecast and actual results, by variety and by plot. The next season starts smarter.
How we build your harvest forecasting app
We start with how you forecast now, because that knowledge lives in people's heads and we don't want to lose it. Then we build the app around that knowledge, not beside it.
Which crops, which varieties, how counting is done and when. We also look at last season's forecasts and how far off they were.
Plots, crop data, varieties and planting layout in the app, with an integration to your cultivation records if you have them.
Growing days from the weather, counts from the plot and the grower's experience combined into one forecast per plot. We test against a past season before forecasting forward.
The weekly overview goes to sales, labour planning and transport, in the form they need. After that we take over the app and adjust the forecast each season.
What a harvest forecasting app actually does
The components below together make up the forecast. Which ones you need depends on how many crops and plots you follow.
Plots and plant records
Plot, crop, variety, planting date and area, with the map so that a count lands in the right place.
Counts with photos
Enter a count or assessment per plot, with a photo and date. Works even without signal in the field.
Weather and growing days
Temperature and precipitation per location, converted into growing days per crop.
Forecast per plot and per week
Expected harvest timing and volume, with a range and the counts the forecast rests on.
Weekly overview for sales
All plots added up by crop and by week, to share with buyers and the sales organisation.
Season-end review
Forecast against actual harvest, by variety and by plot, so the forecast sharpens every season.
Who we build a harvest forecasting app for
The app is meant for businesses that have to commit to buyers on what is coming and plan people and transport around it.
Growers with multiple plots
Leek, cabbage, lettuce or broccoli across dozens of plots that become harvest-ready at different times. You want to know what's coming, week by week.
Grower associations and sales organisations
You bundle members' forecasts into an offer for buyers. Each member's forecast needs to arrive in the same format.
Businesses with their own processing
Your cutting or packing hall plans around what comes off the land. The forecast is the line's schedule.
Contract growing for industry
You supply a processor who asks for weekly volumes. The forecast determines whether you meet the agreement or have to buy in.
Test your idea first: a working prototype in 1 day
With OneDayBuild, we turn your idea into something tangible in one day for €1,150, so you can see whether further development is worth the investment. Decide to go ahead with the full build? Then we credit the full cost.
Explore OneDayBuild →Technology and integrations
The app works on the phone in the field and in the browser in the office. If you're mainly after recording sprays and cultivation tasks, see our page on a spray record app. For whole-farm administration there is farm administration software, and you can read about how we work at building an app.
For the office, with sales, labour and transport aligned to the forecasts, there is our harvest forecasting software for field vegetables.
If you want to plan picking rounds per row in fruit growing and record crates per picker, see our picking list app for top fruit.
Why choose Appfront for your harvest forecasting app?
A forecast is never exact. Its value lies in the range it gives, in sharing it, and in learning from the difference.
The grower's knowledge stays in charge
The app does the calculations, the grower makes the corrections. A forecast that ignores thirty seasons of experience won't be trusted or used.
Testing on last season first
We have the app predict what you already harvested last year. Only once that matches do we forecast ahead.
Your code, your data
The forecast and the history belong to you. If a package disappears, it doesn't take your seasons of counts with it.
Security and privacy for a harvest forecasting app
Field and harvest data is commercially sensitive, especially when shared with a sales organisation or a buyer. We build sharing as a deliberate choice per field and per period: you decide who sees which forecast and at what level of detail.
Counts and forecasts are stored per version, so you can look back and see what was predicted at which moment and on what basis. That is the foundation for post-harvest analysis and for a conversation with a buyer about a deviation.
Frequently asked questions about a harvest forecasting app
Questions growers ask before getting started.
An app that predicts, per field, when and how much can be harvested, based on planting data, counts in the field and the weather. The forecast is totalled weekly for sales and, after harvest, compared with reality so it improves each season.
That depends on the crop, the counts and the weather. We start with a range rather than a single number and test the app on a past season first. As more seasons are added, the range narrows per variety and per field.
Usually not more often, but more systematically. The counts you already do go into the app with date, field and photo. Where a count is missing, the app uses growing degree days. For each crop we look at which moments a count adds the most value.
Yes, in the format they ask for and at the level of detail you choose. A weekly overview per crop is enough for most sales organisations; field-level data stays with you.
The setup does, but the growth model is specific to each crop. Every crop has its own relationship between growing degree days and harvest readiness, which we set per crop based on your own seasons. Start with the crop that earns the most and add the rest afterwards.
Yes. Planting data, varieties and fields are often already held in a crop record system or a GlobalG.A.P. file. We pull them from there rather than re-entering them, and harvest data can be fed back if you wish.
The forecast adjusts to growing degree days, but a hailstorm or a flood isn't something a model can see. That's why the grower can override the forecast per field with a reason, and that correction stays visible in the post-harvest analysis.
Want to make your weekly harvest more predictable?
Tell us which crops you grow and how you forecast now. We'll look at a past season with you and show what a forecast concretely delivers in your situation.