How to use Paddock Pulse

What this app does

Paddock Pulse reads a Profile Sum (or similar) graph from CropX, MAIT, AquaCheck, Greenbrain and other moisture systems. It suggests where Full and Refill belong from the shape of the trace — plateaus after irrigation, dry turns, day/night draw — and writes what it can see.

It does not change lines in CropX or MAIT for you. It does not replace an agronomist. You copy the numbers into your probe software only after you agree they sit on the right shelves on the graph.

Create an account

1. Open the app and tap Create account.
2. Confirm your email from the link we send. New accounts get 2 free AI reads once the email is confirmed (once per email address).
3. Sign in. Your farms and paddocks save to the cloud on that login.

Want to look first? Tap Look around a demo farm first on the sign-in screen. The demo uses made-up example data and nothing you do there is saved.

South Africa: add ?region=za to the link so prices show in rand. Australia is the default.

Farms and paddocks

Home shows the farm you are on. Settings is where you name the farm and, on Advisor, add more farms. Tap a farm pill once to switch. Each farm keeps its own paddocks and graphs.

Set the farm location in Settings: search for the nearest town, type a latitude/longitude, or tap Use my location. The forecast rain and evaporation come from that spot, and Home shows the place name. Until you set it, the app shows no weather rather than guessing.

The Free plan includes 2 paddocks. Paid plans have no paddock limit.

A paddock is one probe / one graph. After a read, use Apply checked paddocks to my farm or the paddock is only a preview and will not stay when you leave.

Upload a graph

On Soil, upload a season PDF, a screenshot of the Sum pane, or a CSV / Excel export. One credit is one paddock graph. A PDF with eight paddock graphs uses eight reads. On the Free plan you can spend your free sign-up reads on screenshots; PDF and CSV upload need a paid plan.

• Best file: a Profile Sum (or calculated average) with a visible mm axis and dashed Full / Refill if the system printed them.
• A stacked depth graph is useful next to a Sum. On its own, the app describes each depth and will not invent a Full / Refill for the whole profile.
• Stay on Soil until the progress finishes. Moving away mid-read can drop the job.

Read the result

Each paddock card shows:

• AI Full / Refill — the suggested lines in mm.
• Printed lines — what the report already had, if the reader could see them.
• What AI can see — the write-up of shelves, spikes, dry turns and dates. This is the useful paragraph. It follows the language you pick in Settings.
• Tracking — how much of the season sat between Full and Refill, below Refill, or above Full. That block is a score summary, not a second opinion.

Low confidence means treat the numbers as a starting point and check the graph yourself. A second model is used when the first read is thin or the two models disagree.

Set the lines in your probe software

1. Open the same graph in CropX, MAIT, AquaCheck or whatever you use.
2. Find the post-irrigation shelf the write-up is talking about. That is Full.
3. Find the dry turn before the next managed set. That is Refill.
4. If the app’s mm and those shelves agree, type the numbers into the probe app.
5. If they do not agree, keep your eye. Then tell us — that is how the product gets better.

Never change a season’s lines from the phone card alone.

How much to irrigate (Plan)

Plan turns “mm to Full” into a set time once you enter an application rate (mm/h). Until you calibrate, the app uses a probe factor of about 0.7 and labels every runtime estimate — calibrate. The probe does not see every millimetre you put on. The factor is:

F = mm the probe rose ÷ mm you applied. After a clean set with no rain, divide the jump on the Sum by the millimetres the water meter said you put on. Typical F is 0.4–0.8. Runtime = (mm needed ÷ rate ÷ F) × 60 minutes.

The easy way: after a set, tap I irrigated on the paddock and enter the hours (or mm) you put on. When the next reading comes in, the app works out F for you. Rain forecast is counted as forecast mm × chance of rain × about 0.7, because not all rain soaks in.

Runtimes are only shown for charts in mm or inches. A chart in % or kPa shows where the paddock sits against Full and Refill, but no runtime.

Season pack PDF

On Soil, download the pack for the paddocks on this farm. It should include the graph, the rec, printed vs suggested lines, tracking, and the “what AI can see” write-up. That is the file to send an advisor or to keep for the season.

Plans and AI reads

• Free — 2 paddocks, manual readings and the Plan, plus 2 free AI reads when you sign up.
• Pro — A$19.99/mo, 10 AI reads / month. Pro includes 2 bonus reads on sign-up.
• Farm — A$49.99/mo, team, 40 reads / month. Farm includes 5 bonus reads on sign-up.
• Advisor — A$79.99/mo, up to 5 client farms, 60 reads / month. Advisor includes 10 bonus reads on sign-up. Extra farms are A$19.99/mo each.
• Need more reads this month? Buy a 20 / 50 / 100 pack (A$29 / A$59 / A$99). One paddock graph = one read.

The bonus reads come once, the first time an account takes that plan, on top of the monthly reads. Start checkout from Account in the app while logged in, so the payment lands on your login. The plan updates after Stripe clears (sometimes a minute).

Units and CSV files

• Each paddock keeps its own unit: mm, inches, % (volumetric) or kPa / cbar (tension). Inches are shown as inches and converted at 25.4 mm per inch for the Plan.
• CSV import accepts comma, semicolon or tab separated files. You see a preview first, then confirm. Imports add to your paddocks and never wipe existing ones, and Undo import puts things back.
• Full and Refill worked out from a CSV are a rough estimate from where the trace settles after irrigation and where water use slows down. Check them on the graph.
• Manual readings: tap Manual on Home or Reading on a paddock and type the value in that paddock's unit. Use Set Full / Set Refill to type the lines yourself.

If something looks wrong

• Stuck on Loading farm — close the tab and reopen. If it keeps happening, email lancejdale@gmail.com before clearing site data, because graphs saved only on this device would be lost.
• “Storage is full” — the phone has run out of space for graph images. Delete old paddocks or seasons you no longer need, or free space on the device.
• Paddocks vanish when you switch farm — apply them to that farm before you leave Soil. Previews are not saved.
• Write-up still in English — set language in Settings, Save, then run the graph again. Old letters stay in the language they were written.
• AI skipped / hung — wait for the progress bar; one PDF with many paddocks takes a few minutes.
• Graph gone after reopen — re-open the paddock on Soil; if the image is missing, upload that pane again and apply.