OrchardHQSay what you see; the right fields fill themselves in.
Using the capture tool, select the tree, row or field and tell it what you think, and photograph what you see.
1. Voice-capture an observation in the field
Walk up to the tree (or row). Open it from the map or the nearest- tree card. Hit the mic and speak: "It's flowering now", "I gave this a heavy pruning", "sprayed with neem oil". We pass the audio and the tree's context (fruit type, variety, known diseases, current month, climate) through to a parser that picks the right kind of note — flowering, fruit set, a disease sighting — and fills the structured fields for you.
place /guide/images/observe-mobile-voice.jpg · 360×740 · phone voice-capture screen mid-recording with live waveform + the tree name visible at the top
1b. Prefer to type? Use the manual form
Pick the tree (or row) from the list. Tap + Observation. Choose what you're recording — in leaf, flowering, fruit set, a yield weight, a height measurement, a pest sighting, a disease — fill the value field, attach a photo if you took one. Actions (pruning, feeding, spraying) sit in the same picker. Pruning prompts for a before / after photo pair.
2. Confirm it landed
As we process it, you can see what we transcribed and what observations and actions it recorded. Confirm with a tap, or correct anything the parser got wrong. The new entry appears at the top of the Recent feed on the home screen.
place /guide/images/observe-mobile-recent-feed.jpg · 360×740 · phone Recent feed with the just-parsed observation at the top — green tick, type chip, value, tree name, time
3. Back at the desk: the tree's Activity tab
On the web app, open the tree. The inline detail panel's Activity tab is a date-ordered timeline: every observation and action with photo thumbnails, years deep. The flowering note you spoke this morning sits at the top with today's date.
place /guide/images/observe-desk-activity.jpg · 1200×680 · inline tree-detail panel on the web app showing the Activity tab: today's flowering observation at the top, then years of prior records with photo thumbnails
Row-level records roll up too
Some things happen to a row, not a tree. "Sprayed the whole cordon this morning" records the action against the row; every tree in the row inherits it on its timeline. Orchard-wide there's a Recent feed for everything in date order.
4. See the raw record
Want the raw data? Open Field notes — every transcription and photo you've captured, in one place, alongside what we did with each one: the observations and actions it became.
Limitations
Sometimes the transcriber struggles in windy conditions. It does save your voice notes when you're offline and transcribes them later, once you're back online — nothing is lost to a dead signal.
And we haven't thought of everything: some observations won't be categorised, but they're kept as basic observations with your voice note attached, so nothing is lost. English (UK / Irish) only at the moment. If you need something we don't yet support, please tell us.
From the orchard
A guide explains; a walkthrough shows. Posts from Frank's own orchard in Gort:
Rescuing two local orchards
Two neglected orchards within ten miles of here. What we found when we walked them, and what comes off first.
More walkthroughs coming as the orchard goes in this winter — including the apple cordon and flowering observations.
Don't see what you need? hello@orchardhq.app — we'd like to hear about it.
Record a tree on the demo orchard.
Try the demo → Request access →