The one operation whose product is other farmers' starting point.
Seedlings and young plants raised as batches and sold as plants, supplying every other crop system on this list.
A nursery sells plants, not produce, and that single difference changes what needs recording. The unit is a propagation batch, not a hectare of standing crop. Success is measured in germination and strike rate, in how many of a batch reached saleable size, and in whether a customer's block failed six months later because of something that happened on your bench.
Nurseries also carry disproportionate responsibility. A citrus nursery supplying greening-free trees, a seedling operation supplying an outgrower scheme, a vegetable propagator supplying commercial growers — in each case a phytosanitary problem multiplies across every farm they served. FuroField records propagation areas as fields, batches as crop cycles, treatments with enforced intervals, and cost per batch, so a customer query can be answered from the record.
Your mistake becomes several other farms' mistake, months later
A nursery's quality problems do not show up on the nursery. They show up in a customer's block after transplanting, when nobody can say which batch those plants came from, what mother stock or seed lot they were raised on, or what was applied to them.
- Batches tracked by tray label only, with no record surviving after dispatch
- No link from a delivered batch back to its seed lot, mother block or treatments
- Germination and strike rates estimated, so a failing propagation protocol is never isolated
- Cost per saleable plant unknown, which makes pricing to a large scheme a guess
From first record to something you can act on
Map propagation areas
Tunnels, shade houses, benches and hardening-off areas become mapped fields with derived area, giving a real basis for capacity and cost.
Run each batch as a cycle
A propagation batch is a crop cycle with its species, variety, sowing or grafting date, target quantity and growth stage. Batches on the same bench remain distinct.
Record treatments and hold entry
Fungicide, insecticide and drench applications are captured with their re-entry and pre-harvest intervals, which hold the batch and protect the staff working dense propagation space.
Sell the batch and keep the link
Buyers, listings and forward agreements record who took which batch, so a customer question six months later has a record behind it rather than a recollection.
In detail
Propagation areas with derived area
Tunnels, benches and hardening areas mapped as fields, so capacity and cost per unit of propagation space are measurable.
Batch-level cycles
Every batch carries species, variety, dates, target quantity and growth stage, and runs alongside other batches on the same bench without merging.
Treatment record with enforced intervals
Applications hold re-entry on a batch until the interval clears, which matters in enclosed propagation houses where staff work at close quarters all day.
Scouting in a high-consequence environment
Damping off, fungus gnat, aphid and disease observations logged with severity and incidence, tracked to resolution, because a problem in propagation multiplies downstream.
Cost per batch
Seed, media, containers and labour costed against the batch, so the price quoted to a scheme buying a hundred thousand seedlings is built on a real figure.
Customer and batch dispatch records
Buyer records and forward agreements capture who received which batch. Formal lot creation with full downstream chain of custody is on the roadmap and marked as planned.
Built for these operations
About nurseries & propagation
Can I trace a delivered batch back to its seed lot or mother block?
Partly, today. The batch is a cycle with its own record of inputs, treatments and dates, and buyer records capture where it went. Full lot-level chain of custody, which is what makes an end-to-end trace formal, is on the roadmap and we label it as planned rather than implying it ships now.
We supply an outgrower scheme with seedlings. Does that connect?
It does, if the scheme also runs on FuroField. Seedlings supplied to registered growers can be issued as an input advance against the grower and recovered automatically from harvest deliveries, which is how most schemes want the seedling cost handled.
Do you track germination and strike rate?
Through the batch cycle: target quantity against what the batch actually produced. It is a batch-level figure rather than a dedicated propagation analytics module, and we would rather describe it accurately than oversell it.
Related
Orchards
Citrus, avocado, mango and macadamia — perennial blocks where this year's decisions are paid for over a decade.
Microgreens & fast-cycle greens
Seven to twenty-one day cycles, sown in succession on benches, supplying restaurants and retail from the edge of the city.
Field crops
Maize, wheat, soya, beans and sorghum — from broad-acre commercial blocks to thousands of smallholder plots.
Bring your fields online this season
Start free on up to 10 hectares — no card. Scale by the hectare as your operation grows.