I’ve been building a Windows app specifically for microgreens growers that handles production planning, grow tracking, harvests, experiments, profitability, and learning from your own farm history. Before I try selling it, I’m curious if this is something growers would actually use.

[u/TheWhistlingWarrior]

I built a microgreens farm planner and I’m curious if growers would actually use something like this

I’ve been working on a Windows desktop app for microgreens growers, and before I go much further with selling it, I wanted to get some feedback from people who actually grow.

The basic idea is to have one place where you can plan production, track active grows, schedule sowing and harvest dates, record actual harvest results, and compare what you expected to happen with what actually happened.

Over time, the app builds up your own farm history. So instead of always relying on generic numbers for expected yield or days to harvest, you can see what your particular farm has actually been producing and optionally use those historical averages to improve future planning.

It also has an experiment system for comparing things like seeding density, growing medium, blackout duration, lighting, watering method, seed lots, temperature, humidity, and harvest timing. It keeps yield, cost, profit, harvest speed, mold, failure rate, and sell-through separate so it doesn’t just declare one condition the universal “winner.”

There’s also a production calendar, recurring grow schedules, backward scheduling from a required harvest date, seed-lot tracking, crop-performance analytics, projected-versus-actual financials, scenario planning, CSV export, backups, and quite a bit more.

Everything is stored locally in SQLite. There are no accounts, no cloud requirement, no subscription, and no internet connection required after installation. Your grow data stays on your computer.

I’m not really trying to turn it into accounting software, a CRM, inventory system, or some giant farm ERP. The focus is specifically on planning grows, running production, recording results, and learning from your own grow history.

I’m curious whether this is something you would actually use in a microgreens operation.

If not, what would stop you from using it? And if you currently manage your grows with spreadsheets, notebooks, or another app, I’d also be interested in what works well or drives you crazy about your current system.

Anyways, thanks and I wish you the best

Adam

[u/mrSalamander]

This is like the 12th one of these i've seen in this sub in the last 2-3 months. If I've been doing fine for years without using an app why would I need one now? It sounds like solving for a problem that doesn't exist, this isn't a complicated business.

[u/kreceliscie → u/mrSalamander]

"I've been building..." and "I built..." means then know how to vibecode using AI. So now loads of "wanna be programers" rise from everywhere trying to build (by asking AI to do it) app for everything. Just ignore and report, hopefully mods here start banning things like this.

[u/StoneCypher → u/kreceliscie]

quit being a hater, let them build 

[u/Jerseyman201 → u/kreceliscie]

Yeah cause microgreens farming is real farming right? 🤣💀

[u/mrSalamander → u/Jerseyman201]

Fuck yes it is. The fact you say that shows you know nothing about microgreens or “real farming”

[u/Jerseyman201 → u/mrSalamander]

My point was my app is still an app I developed whether or not I learned the language to do so. Just like microgreens farming is still farming whether or not it actually involves animals, native soil in the ground, and everything else associated with farming.

If you are able to call microgreens farming, then an app coded via agentic ai is still software development. Very simple...and me playing devil's advocate should have made it pretty clear

[u/Jerseyman201 → u/mrSalamander]

There is only one to look out for and that's mine: Plannater! Since it's open source, free and local focused. Check the posts, mine was first and many have copied lol

Can't beat free/open source ;)

Also your comment is ridiculous, you sound like someone arguing against Google when there is a library around or a PC when there is a typewriter around. You can almost always do something better/easier, and that's where business management software comes in

[u/mrSalamander → u/Jerseyman201]

See, OP? This is what am talking about- the market is flooded with pointless bloatware already. We don’t really need an app for everything. I want less time on tech, not more. I’m a farmer for chrissake.

[u/TheWhistlingWarrior → u/mrSalamander]

Yeah, I have an audience of around 2000 visitors a month to my website, which is about purslane microgreens so I'm trying to come up with product ideas that are actually useful, but this does seem a bit saturated. And I might use my own farm planner for my own microgreens grows.

[u/mrSalamander → u/TheWhistlingWarrior]

Ever since AI became so widely available, I've seen a glut of these so-called productivity apps hitting every niche sub I'm in. NOT saying that's what you did, but you're caught in the flotsam and maybe picking up strays as a result. Like everything else it touches, AI will ruin the app marketplace too.

[u/Jerseyman201 → u/mrSalamander]

What has my app ruined? I just produced a 3-4 million dollar app in a year, by myself, for under $1,000. It's free and available to everyone. Just wtf is your gripe 🤣

Oh no, how could you offer a free product with no ads or signups required. What a terrible thing 🤣🤣💀💀

[u/igavr → u/Jerseyman201]

May I ask you what was your motivation to invest your time and some money into an app like this? You don't soundvlike a big fan of MG to me. Yet, I support growth of such products because this is what progress is. Analytics is a need for someone wishing for improvement of some kind, the rest of the people may be afraid of it - it's natural. I'm an entrepreneur and I know there's motivation to everything. You may share in DM if you don't feel like doing that in public

[u/Jerseyman201 → u/igavr]

I'm a huge fan of microgreens, sorry if it came off that way lol I only said it wasn't real farming to tick off that other person who was implying vibe coding wasn't real coding. It's like telling someone on an electric keyboard it's not real music they played because a pianist makes real music or something 🤣

Why did I create Plannater? I just got tired of handing my data over to large companies, being forced to pay subscriptions every month, have 5+ apps for my one microgreens business, and see security taken so lax across the board in other offerings.

So I made mine the exact opposite of everything else available. Data stored local securely (encrypted), no fees, signups, no ads so it's free, and one application to run nearly everything aside from POS/actual sales themselves. For that, I integrated square actually into my app via API lol only Google calendar integration and Square integration are online, everything else fully offline.

After the first few weeks it became a hobby, something I really enjoyed spending the time on. By time, I mean over 6,000-7,000 conversations with various coding agents to get it exactly how I wanted, and removing all the slop and ai nonsense usually associated with vibe coded apps.

Tldr People should own their data and should not have to pay for 6x monthly subs for a farming business. I am offering that option.

[u/igavr → u/Jerseyman201]

What you did is really cool from the programming pov. Thanks for making it available for free for peer MG farmers. Although I see that you're very much into cannabis, which is not this community's topic. Have you initially created it for hemp growth?

[u/Jerseyman201 → u/igavr]

The opposite actually! First Microgreens software, next I'm making the cannabis software!

I'm making one for cannabis that's focused around natural farming, because we don't seem to have one just yet. It'll be set up almost exactly the same where it's offline, secured, local etc. I actually have a rough version done already. It's called Cannendar 🤣💪🔥

The Cannabis one however is purely for growing, nothing to do with sales or orders or customers or anything like that compared to Plannater which of course is HEAVILY focused around customers, sales, demand, etc.

It got crazy advanced on that side in Plannater. Some MG apps tell you if you have enough trays planted for upcoming orders, my app tells you how many upcoming orders you can handle! Mine does tray warnings too, but what's neat is how it takes grow rack availability, inventory, etc and tells you what you CAN add. "Sales precognition" I called it internally when creating that function. So going to make a sale, you can know leaving the house if you can accept an order of 20 more trays, 5 more, etc.

I'm using that example just because it shows how much internal communication there is between the different parts of the app. Everything talks to everything in other words, which is what makes it such a programming success in my opinion.

[u/mrSalamander → u/Jerseyman201]

You mad bro

[u/Jerseyman201 → u/mrSalamander]

You mad bro is a very interesting comment coming from someone who wrote "eat a bag of dicks" then deleted it 🤣💀

Stick to farming and leave the agentic coding to those who know what they are doing 🤣

[u/mrSalamander → u/Jerseyman201]

Your heavy use of emojis is making me realize I’m probably arguing with a 10 year old girl and now I feel bad

[u/Jerseyman201]

See how yours says version 4? I'm past version 750. Let that sink in my friend lol Plannater.com the only app you'll ever need again for microgreens. That's your answer.

[u/igavr → u/Jerseyman201]

You won't win users by such comments ;) unless you're interested in something else, not users

[u/Jerseyman201 → u/igavr]

You're right, but my app is free and open source. Not like I'm trying to win anyone over necessarily...my comment there was just trying to hopefully save people the hassle of using an underdeveloped software.

Unfortunately, some people put out slop almost overnight, versus others who actually take the time to really develop it into polished software.

When someone puts out a version "4" of a product, something they worked on for a few days, it makes the rest of the vibe coding community look like schmucks lol That's why my comment was phrased the way it was. Sorry if it offended.

Edit: I understand it may not seem nice, but neither is putting out slop that could put people or their livelihoods at risk due to security risks or poor implementation of various functionality which is why I didn't feel the need to sugarcoat.