Pesticide application records for small farms

The idea

Federal law and every state require records of restricted-use pesticide applications, and buyers like GlobalGAP-certified packers require them for all sprays. On small farms the system is a spiral notebook in the truck cab, filled in later from memory, missing the wind speed and the applicator licence number that an inspector will ask for. A failed audit means fines, and for certified growers, losing the certification that gets their fruit into the packhouse.

Big agtech platforms bundle spray records into whole-farm suites costing thousands a year and demanding total adoption. The unbundled wedge is the 30-second log with auto-filled weather, plus the two calculations farmers actually get wrong: when workers can re-enter a sprayed block, and whether a harvest date violates a pre-harvest interval.

Who pays

The farm pays $12/month, with the buyer being the owner-operator of a small fruit, vegetable, or vineyard operation who holds the applicator licence personally and carries the audit risk personally. Distribution runs through state extension services (who teach record-keeping requirements in every certification course and lack a tool to recommend), grower associations, and the crop-specific Facebook groups where audit horror stories circulate.

MVP scope

• Product library with EPA numbers, REI, and PHI entered once
• 30-second spray log with auto-filled weather and offline capture
• Live per-field re-entry status from REI
• PHI-violation warnings against planned harvest dates
• Inspector-ready PDF export by field and date range
• Skip for v1: spray planning, inventory, tank-mix calculators, sensor or equipment integrations, and multi-farm consultant accounts

Build SprayLog, a pesticide record-keeping app for small farms and orchards. Stack: Next.js (App Router, mobile-first PWA that works offline in the field and syncs later), Supabase (Postgres, auth), Stripe for subscriptions.

Core flow: setup has two libraries. Fields: name, acreage, crop, optional map pin. Products: name, EPA registration number, active ingredient, REI (restricted-entry interval) hours, and PHI (pre-harvest interval) days, entered once per product. Logging a spray is then 30 seconds: pick field(s), pick product, enter rate and total amount, target pest, applicator name and licence number, and equipment; date/time default to now and weather (temperature, wind speed and direction, humidity) auto-fills from Open-Meteo for the field's location, all editable. The record is immutable once saved; corrections append an amendment.

The compliance engine does two things. First, each field shows a live re-entry status (safe after date/time X) computed from the latest spray's REI. Second, the parent enters planned or actual harvest dates per field, and the app throws a prominent warning whenever a logged spray's PHI would be violated by that harvest date, before it becomes a violation.

Export produces an inspector-ready PDF per date range and field, formatted with the fields state and federal (WPS) inspectors expect.

Pages: quick log, fields with re-entry status, product library, records list with search, PHI warnings, export, billing.

Pricing: $12/month per farm, unlimited records, 30-day trial.