A trial season, in the order you run it
The full list, grouped by when you meet it: laying out the ground, placing the blocks, getting data in and out, driving the field, recording what happened, and reading it back afterwards.
Ground and geometry
Set out the field and generate a plot grid at the dimensions and bearing you specify.
Field boundaries
Draw on satellite imagery with a live area readout in hectares or acres, drag corners to edit, or import a boundary instead of drawing one.
Trial grids
Ranges × rows, plot length, width and alley on any heading. You give the machine’s working width and the app does the subtraction, refusing spacing narrower than the plot rather than silently clamping it.
Variable dimensions
First 3 plots at 12 m, next 2 at 6 m, on either axis, each step with its own alley, tags and offsets, cycled or extended to fill the block.
Discards and clipping
Guard rows, borders and a wet corner are driven but not measured. Plots outside the boundary stay in the model marked excluded, so numbering never shifts under you.
Placing blocks
Position each block accurately against the field boundary, rather than by eye.
Move, rotate, snap
Drag handles rotate about the block’s centre with 1° snapping, or type a bearing and it turns about the same point the grip does.
Live clearances
Eight dimension lines run from the block’s corners to the boundary while you drag, and the number on the map is the control: type 20 onto the line reading 24.6.
Align and distribute
Edges and centres in the key block’s own frame, so "left" follows the direction of travel rather than the screen. Exact gaps in metres, and match-heading for strays.
Align by plot pair
Two blocks with different row counts do not share lanes just because their edges line up. Pick one plot in each and the second slides until a combine can drive straight through both.
Data in and out
Import the data you already hold, and export in the formats your equipment and your analysis require.
Import
Zipped shapefile, KML and GeoJSON. Polygons become candidate boundaries and lines become reference lines. A line-only file is a valid import, not an error.
Plot-set detection
A layer of many small uniform polygons is solved back into the grid that made it (origin, bearing, rows, size pattern, numbering), and the fit is verified before it is accepted.
Fieldbook binding
Bind a design from ARM, agricolae, FielDHub, Breedbase or a spreadsheet onto the lattice. Header aliases only propose a mapping; you confirm it, because range and row mean opposite things in different tools.
Export
Shapefile with WGS84 or auto-UTM .prj, ISOXML TASKDATA.XML with one Partfield per plot, KML, KMZ, GeoJSON, XLSX, CSV and BrAPI v2. Field scope and machine-setup scope stay separate.
Run mode
Drive the field with Fieldbase operating your machinery at each plot edge.
GPS over serial
NMEA 0183 GGA/RMC/VTG with checksum validation and baud autodetection, over Web Serial or the desktop app. A drive simulator and NMEA log replay exercise the same pipeline with no hardware at all.
Crossing engine
Fixes projected into the grid’s frame, gated by pass and travel direction, interpolated between fixes and fired early by speed × latency. Single-fire hysteresis means jitter cannot double-fire.
Output control
Automated switching through standard industrial hardware: USB and Modbus relay modules, or an I/O board running the supplied Fieldbase firmware with a USB-loss failsafe. Map each trigger stage to a channel as pulse, latch or PWM.
Work pattern and transit
Finish a block’s own serpentine, or merge collinear passes and work the whole field the way a combine does. Blocks become keep-out rectangles, so transit runs the free lanes instead of a diagonal through standing crop.
Recording what happened
Keep a complete record of what was done to each plot, when, and by whom.
Plot event history
Notes, photos, machine operations and status changes bound to a stable plot id, so inserting a range never slides a season of observations onto the wrong plots.
Field notes on foot
Which plot the device thinks you are in, what that plot is, and proof the last entry landed. Follow-me never fires a permission dialog on arrival and stops when you leave the view.
Instruments over serial
Scales, grain gauges, moisture meters, NIR and generic CSV devices. The parse is data, not code: adjust a delimiter or a regex and a device nobody has seen works without waiting for a release.
Barcode labels
Code 128 sheets carrying the trial, plot number and the plot’s stable id, sized to whatever label stock you already bought.
Hands-free voice dictation
Score plots by voice with both hands full. Dictation runs on the phone itself, so it works with no signal and nothing is sent anywhere, and it is tuned to the vocabulary of your own traits.
Programs and analysis
Plan the season’s work and read results back as they are recorded.
Traits
Count, number, text, category or date, with units, expected range and timing guidance. Range checks warn and never block, because the person in the plot is the only one who can tell a miscount from the most interesting plot in the trial.
Activities on a schedule
Planned work with start and target dates on a Gantt, completing itself from recorded operations: an activity called Plant is satisfied by plots that were seeded.
Dashboards
Summary stats, coverage, timelines, trait comparison and distribution, grouped by trial or any plot tag. Every number is derived on read, so no dashboard can drift from the records underneath it.
Outliers judged in context
Flagged within a group, because a treated plot and an untreated one are supposed to differ, and flagging the control every season trains people to ignore the flag.
Maps, files and platforms
The practical requirements of working in a vehicle, in sunlight, with no connection.
Imagery and overlays
Google satellite and roadmap with your own key, custom XYZ and WMS, plus GeoTIFF, placed images and vector overlays stacked above the basemap with per-layer visibility.
Offline for real
Bundled fonts and icons, an LRU tile cache with size and count ceilings, and an automated test that renders the app with every third party blocked.
Projects and undo
Local .agproj files, autosave with a visible save state, unlimited undo across bulk operations, and schema migrations so an old project opens rather than being refused.
Web and desktop
Chromium browsers for the full feature set including Web Serial, and Windows, macOS and Linux desktop builds with a serial port picker whose permissions survive a restart.
Phone and tablet
A native iPhone and Android app carrying the farm's fields and plots in your pocket, with field notes that know which plot you are standing in and sync that catches up when you are back in coverage.