Crop rotations have been at the centre of agricultural systems throughout history. The right rotation can improve soil nutrition, breaks pest and disease cycles and improves weed control. AHDB Knowledge Exchange Manager Paul Hill says: “There’s nothing new about looking at rotations or cover crops, but we now need to bring innovative ideas into farming to meet the challenges of the future: resistance, regulation and, biggest of all, climate change.” 

The right rotation results in improved yields, lower emissions and less land degradation.  We all know this, but are we choosing the right rotations in our planning?  

fieldmargin combines the visual aspect of a map with the field history and area calculations of a spreadsheet to make planning rotations on your farm a breeze.

Easily plan new crop rotations on the map 

Using farm years you can easily see how different field layouts would look directly from the map. 

For example: You want to grow 100 ha of oilseed rape on your farm in 2020. You want to plant this in fields that had Winter Wheat in the previous cropping year and are close together. You can see how this can be done below.

Using Set Field Usage you can see previous usages when you hover the mouse over a fieldand select fields that are close together or all of your fields that previously had a particular crop using the list. As you select fields the total area is shown at the top. Once you set the usage your fields are updated so that you can see the fields where you plan to have oilseed rape on the map.

On the field list in the menu the previous years field use is written underneath the field name. Using the lists you can quickly set any fields that are the same every year on year, for example pastures and orchards.

Depend less on spreadsheets by using fieldmargin to automatically view total crop areas by year.  

You can easily see a summary of the totals for each field usage on your farm for each Farm Year on your field list. This means it quick to check this information for audits and subsidy schemes. 

Access historic details about your fields while out and about on the farm

Innovation and making the best decisions relies on not just keeping accurate records but also having easy access to the facts and figures.  Now farm tasks and notes are separated by field year as well as being attached to fields. This means you can quickly look back to the previous year field uses and find important historic details such as spray records, key crop dates and yields. Great for on farm discussions with your agronomist and advisers. 

Try today

Let us know what you think about this new feature. We love talking to agriculture and software enthusiasts. Send us your feedback or questions by emailing support@fieldmargin.com or by phoning us on +44 203 289 4200. 

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