Collect composite and zone soil samples

Composite and zone sampling is available to selected accounts. If you don't see these features, contact your FarmQA representative.

Soil sampling tasks require the Tasks add-on. See Tasks — FarmQA to learn more.

Collecting a composite or zone task means pulling cores at the points on your map, then naming the bags they went into. Both work the same way: you collect, then you name each bag on the Review tab. A composite task has a single bag, listed as Whole field. A zone task has one bag per zone.

The mobile app calls the bag's identifier the sample id; the web app calls the same thing the Reference number. You can scan its barcode or type it in.

If your task is a grid task, one bag per point, see Collect soil samples using a task instead.

For every role and what it can do, see Breakdown of user permissions.

The sampling page

The sampling page has two tabs across the top — Map and Review — and three controls stacked at the lower right:

• Navigate to field — centers the map on the field.
• + — records a core at your current device location.
• ✓ — takes you to the Review tab when you've finished collecting.

You collect on the Map tab and name your bags on the Review tab, moving between them as often as you need.

Find your way to the next point

Once you're within about 2,500 feet of it, FarmQA draws a line from your location to the nearest thing worth walking to — an unsampled point on the task, or a geo marker on the field. The line is labelled with the distance and shows red until you're close enough for FarmQA to treat you as standing on it, then turns green.

Collect a composite task

1. Select the Tasks icon, then select the task you need to complete.
2. On the Map tab, select a point each time you pull a core there. The point changes color to show it's been sampled.
3. To pull a core somewhere that isn't marked, select that spot on the map to add a point.
4. When you've finished collecting, select ✓ to open the Review tab.
5. Select the Whole field row, then scan or type the sample id for the bag.
6. Submit.

Every point you sample feeds the same bag. The count of points has no effect on what the lab receives — one composite task is one bag and one lab result.

Collect a zone task

1. Select the Tasks icon, then select the task you need to complete.
2. Open the sampling page from the task. All zones appear as shapes on the Map tab.
3. Select a point inside a zone each time you pull a core there. The point changes color to show it's been sampled.
4. To pull a core somewhere that isn't marked, select that spot inside a zone boundary to add a point. Selecting outside every zone does nothing — points can only belong to a zone.
5. When you've collected across a zone, open the Review tab and select that zone.
6. Scan or type the sample id for that zone.
7. Repeat for each zone. You can return to the Map tab at any point to keep adding cores.
8. When every zone you can reach is done, submit from the Review tab.

The Review tab lists every zone with how many samples have been taken in it, so it's the fastest way to see what's left.

If your organization always uses device location

When Always use device location for soil samples is turned on for your organization, collection works differently: selecting points on the map is disabled, both for the points already on the task and for adding new ones. Use the + control instead — it records a core at wherever you're physically standing. Selecting a point you've already sampled still works, so you can correct its sample id.

Ask your administrator if you're not sure which way your organization is set up.

About the sample id FarmQA suggests

If Automatically advance sample barcode or ID is turned on for your organization, FarmQA pre-fills each sample id with the next value in sequence, based on the last one you entered, keeping the same prefix and the same number of digits. Accept it or replace it.

Typing something that ends in a different number restarts the sequence from what you typed. Typing something with no number in it at all ends the sequence — nothing is suggested on the next scan until you enter a value that ends in digits again.

Fix a mistake

• Wrong sample id. Select the group on the Review tab and scan or type it again to replace it.
• Point in the wrong place. Select the point and delete it. A point you added yourself is removed entirely. A point that came with the task is cleared back to unsampled, so you can sample it properly.

Review and submit

Before you submit, FarmQA shows a summary of every zone — or, for a composite task, the single Whole field group — with its sample id and sample count.

Two things stop a submission and have to be fixed first:

• A group with cores but no sample id. FarmQA prompts you to add the required sample id. Select the group and scan or type it.
• The same sample id used twice. Sample ids have to be unique within a task.

A zone you couldn't reach is different — no cores, no sample id. FarmQA warns you and asks you to confirm, but lets you submit. That zone produces no soil sample record and doesn't reach the lab, and you can sample it later on a new task. FarmQA also tells you the associated work item will be completed.

Completing the task triggers automatic lab submission if your lab is connected for it.

Leave and come back

Your progress saves as you go. You can put the phone away, let it sleep, or close the app, and everything comes back when you reopen the task — sampled and unsampled points, zone states, and every sample id you've entered.

Where you were on screen isn't restored, so expect to reselect a zone or pan back to where you were working. Your progress clears only after you've submitted successfully, or if the task is removed or completed from the web app while you're out.

One thing to know if zone maps change mid-season: if the task's management zone layer is edited while you have collection in progress, any location you've already collected that no longer falls inside a zone is dropped when you reopen the task. The sample ids you've entered survive. Where you can, submit before a zone map is reworked.

Collection works offline. Submissions queue and send when you're back in coverage.

Map layers during collection

Imagery layers and geo marker layers are available while you collect. Management zone map layers are turned off during a zone task, so the only zone shapes you see are the task's own.