Hello all! I am not a grower myself, but I have a very big interest in helping orchard growers like yourselves! I am apart of a “farm-tech” that seeks to create a better future for farming! We just started doing business with a local family orchard in Northern Michigan, and a big problem they were facing on their end dealt with record keeping. Due to the FSA, I believe, making record keeping a more maticulous task they struggled to find a program that would help them make an easy transition from the pen and paper method. What are programs that you are using for record keeping on your orchard? And why did you choose them? Answers will help us create a better product for growers like yourselves in the future! Happy Farming!
For my fruit orchard I am fine with MS Excel and notepad. I use them mostly for their simplicity and it’s also convenient since I can use it on any computer - friends or even at work, no need to install any extras, just send document as attachment in email and all set. My wife is using Garden Planner for her ornamentals
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Paul that is a pretty cool program for tracking trees. Have you seen any other programs like that?
I use a shoebox at this point but when all my pears are grown I will use https://quickbooks.intuit.com/premier/
iPhone for taking pictures and videos in the orchard; excel back home to tabulate the data.
iPhone is compact and portable and I always have it on me. I find it easier to videotape my thoughts and observations rather than carrying a notepad which is bulky and can get wet / muddy.
Years ago… well 8 or so… Now I’m feeling old… l… lost train of thought, 
I created a handheld software for tracking information on beekeeping. My daughter and I would go out and work together doing our father daughter bonding.
You would use the handheld to scan a barcode label that was prefixed to a hive, then you would go through questions and notes to allow you to enter info on how a hive was doing. Number of supers, date, queen condition, date re-queened, mite count, general mood of bees, and on and on, as well as a note taking area. You would go back to your home computer and upload the data and use a excel spread sheet to review. This worked out really well… Those were the days…
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Thanks for all the responses! We have a record keeping software that is more directed toward row crops (corn, beans, wheat etc.).FarmLogs Automatic Activity Recording. If you click the link and watch the video it will give a brief overview of what it is. If I could get some feedback on what would need to be added to make it more beneficial to fruit farmers that would be awesome! Thanks!!
There is a member here with a garden register website where you can enter your trees, bloom times, etc. I tried it last year but kind of lost interest and it was beginning to be a hassle to log everything that way.
Now I use a simple spreadsheet that lists each tree, rootstock, date planted, each years bloom time and each years harvest, and a note section where I might add what year it was grafted.
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@BobC I am sure there are few more but I am not aware of them. I remember there was a similar thread here before so you can try to look it up, you might find better options there.
Yes as speedster mentioned there was a user Chrishashtags who was working on his project “gardenregister.com” and it was pretty good. I was going to use it but stopped because all the varieties had to be approved by the admin. The database was limited and writing for each variety to be authorized was a hassle. But it was great idea, that’s for sure.
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I was going to recommend you look at the same thing that the 2 posters above mentioned. I think its fairly close to what you are talking about. It’s also interesting that all 3 of us started off using it but eventually lost interest for whatever reason. Here is a link:
http://www.gardenregister.com/
I’ve also used the design software noted by Paul in the first response in this thread. It’s pretty neat once completed but I found it to be a bit troublesome to create ,my garden and orchard.
So, like others here, and now just use plain old Excel. Granted, it mostly is just a basic way enter data, but I like that simplicity and ease of use. Also, thanks to work I’m pretty good at using formulas and “if then” conditions and other tools to make my database do whatever else I need at times. Its also easy to transform and transfer the excel data into other database software.
Yes that is the site I was taking about. I kept getting frustrated that so often I would go to enter a tree and it wasn’t in the database. Then you’d have to enter all the data and even then it wouldn’t get always get approved. Good concept. Maybe he has the bugs worked out now.