SHEDU ← FIELD NOTESALVA, SOUTHWEST FLORIDA

A BETTER WAY TO PLAN THE FARM

Choose what grows.
See what works.

Explore crops, cash flow and the work behind them.
Build a farm with primary crops, secondary rows and support plants.

USDA mapped soil21 years of NASA weatherEditable crop budgets

01 / YOUR FARM

Start with the land.

Alva, Lee County

Illustrative site · fine sand, poor drainage.
10% reserved for access and handling.

02 / PRIMARY CROPS

Choose the primary crop.

Pick one or several.
We’ll compare each crop and an equal-area mix.

Add a small indoor operation

Microgreens and mushrooms use a modest weekly production module in an existing suitable building. They do not scale with farm acreage.

Mango and bell-pepper rows stay in the comparison as reference designs. Every design gets the same habitat allowance.

03 / SECONDARY & SUPPORTING CROPS

What grows alongside?

Cash rows, living mulch and flowers.
Choose freely, or use a suggestion below.

Space & light 15% of growing land by default

Secondary beds take space from primary crops; they are not extra acres. Cash crops receive four shares of this space and support plantings one share each. Native habitat and equipment access remain separate. A living mulch may occupy an orchard alley; overlapping root and canopy interactions are not yet modeled.

Add any other crop or plant no catalog restriction

You can choose any plant. Starter costs are provided; a custom cash crop has no assumed sales until you enter yield and price in Adjust assumptions. Its budget is labeled partial, and compatibility remains unverified.

KNOWLEDGE FOR YOUR COMBINATION

Suggested integrations

UF/IFAS references · Oct 2026

These suggestions explain potential functions, not guaranteed protection. The financial model adds their costs and space; pest, disease and fertilizer savings remain zero until measured.

Adjust assumptions optional · everything is prefilled

These are starting estimates, not current buyer quotes. Change a price, sales limit or cost only when you have a better local estimate.

Crop prices & scale

Farm economics

Water & weather stress

Storms and climate changes are stress tests, not forecasts. All designs share the same historical weather samples.

Funding & financing

No award is assumed by default. A conservation award is capped at modeled potential eligible infrastructure; actual eligibility and an executed agreement must be confirmed. Loans and research awards never count as farm profit.

20 acres · 20-year comparison

Loading the Alva example…

04 / THE TRADE-OFFS

See the whole picture.

Exploratory estimates after paid labor and establishment costs. Weather ranges hold prices, demand and crop assumptions fixed.

Sales ceilings are assumptions, not buyer commitments. A mix can rank higher because it serves several crop markets. Check local demand in “Adjust assumptions.”

Compare designs

All metrics side by side
DesignLong-term valueAnnual netWork / yearNative habitat / cropsDry / wet retentionEquipment / year

Habitat, crop count and permanent cover are biodiversity planning proxies, not wildlife measurements. Contractor harvest costs are included; contractor hours are unavailable.

Grants & outside funding separate from farm earnings
Where the defaults come from
Knowledge sources & connection costs

The built-in reference library links to public UF/IFAS research and extension guidance. Suggestions use crop selection and planting role, with season and light guidance. They are curated rules with source links, not a live database query or a trained agronomic advisor.

Additional database / API fees for this version: $0. No paid service was connected and existing hosting is unchanged. A shared database can be added later for regional rules, grower observations and expert review. Live feeds, licensed datasets or AI retrieval would need their own scope and pricing; source maintenance and agronomic validation remain work even when the reference pages are free to read.

The original livestock scenarios remain in the earlier detailed simulator.