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5/10

HarvestPlan

A multi-year crop rotation and revenue planner for new farmland buyers that takes your parcel's USDA soil profile, climate history, and frost dates and generates a 5-year rotation plan with projected revenue per acre, water needs, and risk-adjusted ROI per crop.

Target user

New rural land buyers and hobby farmers who just bought 5–80 acres and don't know what to actually grow

Features
  • Auto-generated 5-year rotation plan based on your parcel's pH, drainage, frost window, and 10-year climate
  • Revenue projection per acre for 16+ crops (corn, soy, alfalfa, specialty, orchard) under realistic yield assumptions
  • Water and irrigation planning layered onto the rotation
  • 'Add livestock' scenario that shows how goats or cattle fit into a rotation and shift per-acre economics
Why now

Land Atlas just validated that rural land buyers want serious soil and climate data — the natural next question buyers ask is 'ok, I have the data, now what do I plant?' and no mainstream tool answers it.

Signals · overall 5/10
Demand
5/10

Land Atlas HN thread confirms interest in soil+climate parcel data (27 pts), and multiple 'best crop planning software' listicles serve hobby farmers, but the target (new 5–80 acre buyers asking 'what should I grow?') is a narrow sub-niche with no search-volume validation.Land Atlas - soil, farmability, and crop analysis for land listings7 Best Crop Planning Software for Farmers - FarmstandApp

Whitespace
5/10

Several rotation/revenue planners already exist (Quick Organics Crop Rotation Revenue Planner, Micro-Farm Planner, Farm Planner, Fincabout), but none tightly combines USDA SSURGO + frost dates + 5-year rotation + risk-adjusted ROI aimed specifically at new buyers; whitespace is moderate.Crop Rotation Revenue Planner - Quick OrganicsFarm Planner - Integrated Crop Planning & Field Rotation Management

Monetization
4/10

Hobby farmers and new land buyers are notoriously price-sensitive; many free planners and ad-supported calculators (Quick Organics, CropCircleFarms, treeplantation) compete on price, and no clear paid SaaS benchmark for this exact use case was found.Crop Rotation Revenue Planner - Quick OrganicsMulti-Crop Revenue Calculator | Tree Plantation

Longevity
6/10

Farms last generations and rotations are multi-year; users stay engaged for years

Feasibility
6/10

USDA SSURGO, NOAA climate normals, and frost-date APIs are publicly accessible, but assembling crop-specific yield/revenue/cost-per-acre tables and rotation logic is a meaningful data-engineering effort, not trivial.

Land Atlas – soil, farmability, and crop analysis for land listings · 27 points · 9 commentsHacker News · 2026-07-19 (5d ago)