What's included
Almost every other schedule negotiates with its constraints. A cropping year does not: biology sets the sequence and the weather sets the window. The template keeps both visible:
- Winter planning, agronomy & inputs — Field-by-field cropping plan and rotation, soil sampling and nutrient results, seed, fertiliser and chemical ordering, machinery service and calibration, and labour and contractor bookings for the season. Milestone: inputs delivered and stored.
- Seedbed preparation & planting window — Soil temperature and moisture monitoring, primary cultivation and seedbed preparation, pre-emergence herbicide and starter fertiliser, then drilling worked through early fields, the main block and the late and wet ground. Milestones: planting window opens, drilling complete.
- Emergence & crop growth stages — Emergence counts and establishment assessment, tillering, stem extension and canopy closure, flowering and grain fill, with weekly crop walking and irrigation scheduling running the length of the season. The growth stages are what the spray dates hang from.
- Spray & nutrition programme — Post-emergence herbicide at early tillering, the nitrogen splits, T1 at stem extension, T2 at flag leaf and T3 at flowering — each tied to a growth stage rather than to a calendar date. Milestone: spray programme complete.
- Harvest & field logistics — Grain moisture testing and harvest readiness, combine and cart fleet readiness, then harvest across early, main and late fields with carting and weighbridge logistics running alongside. Milestones: harvest window opens at target moisture, harvest complete.
- Drying, storage & post-harvest — Continuous drier throughput and moisture control, store filling with aeration and temperature monitoring, sampling, grading and assurance records, contract deliveries, post-harvest cultivation and cover crop drilling, and the season review. Milestone: crop year closed.
How to customize it
- Set the planting window milestone from your own soil temperature records, not from last year's drilling date, and let the drilling bars move with it.
- Split drilling into early, main and late field bars sized to your actual daily rate. That is what shows whether the fleet can finish inside the window or whether you need a contractor.
- Hang every spray bar off a growth stage bar rather than a date. When the season runs early or late, the spray timings should move with the crop automatically.
- Add one crop bar per enterprise if you grow several. Their windows overlap and compete for the same drill, sprayer and combine, and that competition is the whole point of the chart.
- Give drier throughput its own bar running through harvest. If it is shorter than the harvest bars above it, storage is your constraint and the schedule should say so.
- Mark labour and contractor bookings early. Specialist kit and casual harvest labour are booked across the district, and a late booking means the window closes with the crop still standing.
Scheduling tips
- Drill to soil conditions, not to the plan. A seedbed drilled wet costs yield for the whole season, and the days apparently saved come back as a poor establishment you cannot spray your way out of.
- Keep the sprayer ahead of the crop, not behind it. Growth-stage timings have a window of a few days; a sprayer stuck in another field is the most common reason a fungicide goes on late.
- Plan harvest around the drier, not the combine. Cutting at high moisture is only useful if you can dry it; otherwise grain sits in trailers overheating while the combine looks productive.
- Book contract haulage before harvest, not during it. Everyone needs lorries in the same fortnight, and a full store with no outlet stops the combine as effectively as rain.
- Service machinery in winter and calibrate before the window. A breakdown in a fourteen-day drilling window is not a repair, it is a lost field, and workshop time in February is free by comparison.
- Record everything as you go for assurance. Spray records, moisture readings and store temperatures are needed for grain assurance and contracts, and reconstructing them after harvest is both slow and unconvincing.
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Frequently asked questions
How do you build a planting and harvest schedule?
Start from the windows you do not control — soil temperature for drilling and grain moisture for harvest — then fit the fleet around them. The agronomic sequence between those two points is set by the crop, not by preference.
Why are spray dates tied to growth stages rather than dates?
Because a fungicide or herbicide only works within a narrow window around a specific stage. If the season runs two weeks early, the spray dates move two weeks early with it, which is why the template hangs them off the growth-stage bars.
What limits how fast we can harvest?
Usually drying and storage rather than combine capacity. If throughput is lower than the rate at which grain arrives, cutting has to slow down, so the drier bar belongs on the chart alongside the harvest bars.
How should multiple crops be shown?
As parallel sets of bars sharing the same machinery. The value of the chart is showing where two crops want the drill, sprayer or combine in the same week, which is the real planning decision on a mixed farm.
When should inputs and contractors be booked?
Over winter, well before the window opens. Seed, chemical and specialist contractor availability is regional and tightens sharply once the season starts, and a late booking effectively shortens your window.
Is the crop planting and harvest template free?
Yes. Free Excel, PowerPoint and CSV downloads, and free online editing with no account and no watermark.