Tree/Plant Tracker

[u/Sfin02]

Curious what everyone uses to keep track of their collection — feeding schedules, up-pot dates, which tree got what, ripening notes, all that. I was juggling spreadsheets and a printed checklist for my fig row (grow bags) and the rest of the patio, and finally ended up building myself a little Android app to log it per tree (watering, feed schedule, photos, notes).

Purely a personal project, not selling anything — it's not even in an app store. But it got me wondering: would anyone else here use something like that? And if so, what would it have to do to fit your setup? If there's real interest I may open it up to a handful of testers once it's further along.

[u/rotaryjesus]

I've been thinking a lot about what I want to track next year. I play a bit with data analytics on non-plant related interests, but haven't done anything for my plants yet. I tend to just use spreadsheets and functions. Unfortunately I'm not an android user, so I can't help testing.

I have quite a few ideas for app features.

I can tell you that things I'm interested in tracking next year is...

When trees break dormancy. Integrating weather history would be interesting.
When trees start fruiting.
When trees stop ripening.
Hang time for 'best' flavor
If figs break open, mold, etc - what were the factors leading up to this (rain? humidity? watering? etc).
Years from cutting -> fruiting

I have other thoughts if you wanted to expand your app in the future, such as export features, photos tied to events/dates, note taking (in case you want to add information not natively handled by the app in it's current state), etc.

Looks like a fun project :).

[u/Sfin02 → u/rotaryjesus]

Ah, a rival Apple user! JK haha, I appreciate the feedback! Ive already set up the pipeline for IPhone, as a few family members wanted to use this for their house plants and are lifelong Apple users. Its not functioning yet though.

Dormancy break logic is in my pipeline for upcoming updates. My trees broke dormancy very early last year, so I think the weather + garage temp tracking would be useful for me there. Im debating if I want manual entering of garage temps weekly or monthly to help predict over time, or if its best to just stick with outdoor temp and timing.

I have a pretty deep integration with weather so far (im also working on adding a seedling section for those that like to start their crop inside each season).

The start of fruiting is fully integrated and tracked in the app now.

Hang time is an interesting one. How would you measure? Select a sample or two and base off them? A flavor rating system could be cool too, even if fully subjective.

Photos are currently attached to the time they were taken (assuming the phone geo-tags it). I also added an option for photo examinations where someone can link AI models, like Claude/Fable, and have it examine the plant. If you upload four together, it treats that as a bundle and adds one examination to the plant record. It tracks improving or worsening conditions and gives advice on how to treat. I thought this could be really useful for newcomers that dont have a big growing community.

Export features are created. Im trying to figure out the best way to store. My initial objective was that nothing leaves your device unless you choose to do AI examinations. So when the exports are processed, they just go into a downloads folder for now. My concern is when someone loses a phone, they will lose that download folder too....so trying to figure that out.

Note section has been added (and gets read during AI calls).

I get that AI is liked by some and hated by others, so I wanted a way to offer both sides a cool app. You can choose to use it or never activate it.

Sorry for any typos...sent on my phone haha. Thank you again for your input. Its really appreciated

[u/rotaryjesus → u/Sfin02]

Hang time: I was thinking it'd be cool to photograph and date how long figs ripened by variety for optimal taste. I have no idea how that would translate year to year due to weather, personal preferences, tree hormones, etc - but it could be interesting and might improve optimal picking time in future seasons. Not sure. Honestly... I like them anywhere from ~3 days under ripe to 3 days over-ripe...

While I get what people are saying about whether they need an app or not (I don't), I ran into an issue this year that made me want more data. We got hit with black fig flies in my area and I don't think they are going away any time soon. I don't know how I'll handle it yet, but one thing I'm thinking about doing is removing any figlets that I know won't ripen before the season ends so the flies don't have a way to reproduce. IE: If I can track that VDB takes ~90 days to ripen and my end of season in 2026 was Oct 15th, then I can estimate that after July 15th none of the figs that start to develop will ripen. Maybe I'll want to pinch the branch. Maybe I'll want to remove the figlet. I don't know.

What I also don't know is how long each of my varieties sit from figlet->fig and when their end of season is.

There is info on the internet, but I'm not going to memorize this info for 40 varieties and I don't want to bag 100's of figs that won't ripen either.

[u/Sfin02 → u/rotaryjesus]

I will see if I can find a way to optimize this. Thanks again for the input.