Answer
Traction Enterprise has a flexible system for tracking what you grow consisting of a 3-level biological hierarchy built around what you grow (Crop-Subspecies-Variety) plus an extra layer of flexibility in how you use it through Intended Use.
Biological Hierarchy
Crop: Roughly speaking, a crop is a group of subspecies that have the same biological growth model. For example, Corn and Wheat are different crops.
Subspecies: A crop can have multiple subspecies. A subspecies roughly corresponds to a specific section in a seed catalog. For example, Pinto Beans, Black Beans, and Kidney Beans are all subspecies of the crop Beans.
Variety: This is the specific seed variety that you use. Multiple seed varieties might belong to a subspecies. Each unique product code/SKU" in our seed catalog corresponds to a different variety. For example, there are many different varieties of the subspecies Commercial Corn such as DKC61-79.
Harvest Product
In addition to the biological classification, the Harvest Product also allows you to specify how the harvested crop will be used. For example, a specific variety of Commercial Corn could be used for either Grain or Silage. Note that we allow individual Crop Plans to have multiple harvest Tasks with different harvest products. This would allow you to have a single Wheat Plan, and harvest it both for Grain and for Hay. Prices for crops are set up on the basis of harvest product, and that determines how they are tracked in inventory.
Subspecies/Harvest Product Overlap
There are some cases where there is overlap between the subspecies and harvest product. For example, there are specific varieties of corn that are grown for silage, thus we have a Silage Corn subspecies. However, since you can harvest any type of corn for silage we also have Silage as a harvest product. This allows you to harvest Commercial Corn for silage also.
Example
The crop, Wheat, has several subspecies, including Durum Wheat, Hard Red Winter Wheat, and Hard Red Spring Wheat. Each subspecies has many different varieties. For example, varieties of Hard Red Winter Wheat include Greer, Post Rock, and SY Gold. Any wheat crop could have an intended use of Grain, Seed, or Silage.
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