Set up bin weights for harvest records
Setting up Bin Weights
Setting up bin weights is a 2 part process. This is because in some circumstances you may be using different sized bins on the same crops and we need an easy way for the program to differentiate between the various bin sizes and the correct weight.
The first thing to do is establish which type of bin is going to be made your “standard” bin.
For example if the majority of bins used on your property to pick large fruit such as apples and pears is the wooden bin but you may occasionally use a plastic which is, say, 10% smaller, then the wooden bin would be considered your 'standard' bin.
Step 1. Go to Set Up Menu > Crops & Varieties > Crops. In this screen you will see a bin weight against each crop. Enter the average weight for a your standard bin against each crop. (Note, you may have already completed this step when creating your crops - in which case you won't need to do it again)
Step 2.Go to Set Up Menu > Picking and enter in the Container Description e.g. “Wooden Bin”
Step 3. In the Size field, enter the number 1. Example below:
To add another bin type (use the small arrows at the bottom of the sub screen), create a second record e.g. called 'Plastic Bin'. In the size field enter 0.9 as the plastic bin only holds 90% of the standard bin.
If you have any other bins which can be used on these crops add them to the list and work out their “size” according to the percentage of weight against a standard bin.
As an example of how the tonnage is calculated. If you create a record in an apple block and you pick 10 bins using the wooden bin and you have set up the weight against apple crops as 420 Kg’s, the calculation is:
10 x 420 x 1 = 4200kg’s
If you went to that same block the next day and picked 10 bins using plastic bins the calculation would be:
10 x 420 x 0.9 =3780 kg’s
So regardless of the crop, the plastic bin will always record at 10% less than the wooden bin.
FAQ's
What about half bins?
If you only use half bins on specific crops and you are never going to use a full bin on those crops then you can set the “size” against this bin as one (1) and the weight against these particular crops as the weight of a full half bin.
If there is a possibility that the half bin may be used on other crops or other bins may be used on these specific crops that usually have half bins, then it is recommended that make the weight against these crops as if they were being picked into a wooden bin.
For example, If a half bin is filled with apricots, let’s say it weighs 200kg. What we have to do is work out what this is as a percentage of a full wooden bin. If we assume that a full half bin is actually half the size of a wooden bin then the size of a half bin would be 0.5 and the weight against the crop: apricots would be 400kg. So if we use our example above:
We pick 10 half bins on an apricot block the program will calculate:
10 x 400 x 0.5 = 2000kg’s
If you have a container which is specific to a crop such as lugs to cherries the lug size would be one (1) and the weight against the crop, Cherries, would be whatever a lug of cherries weighs.
Calculating weight by bins is never going to be totally accurate but it will give you a very close estimate of your tonnage off a block. You may be able to get some more accurate averages if your bins are being weighed prior to packing. If this is the case then you may need to refine the weights per bin against crops in GrowData based on the averages you are getting from bins being weighed.
How do I work out the percentage against the standard bin?
Using the apples as a standard measure. Let’s say you have a big bin which holds 450kg of apples.
450 divided by 420 = 1.0714
To test if your calculations are correct: (The size is reduced to 2 decimal places)
420 x 1.07 = 449.4
A smaller bin is exactly the same. Say you had a bin which when full of apples weighs 360kg:
360 divided by 420 = 0.8571 (0.86 reduced to 2 decimal places)
Test:
420 x 0.86 = 361
Where does the Bin Tare Weight field flow through to?
This field is no longer connected to anywhere else in the program and does not contribute to calculations behind the scenes. If you want to store info in here you can, but otherwise it's safe to ignore.