At a roughly 400-acre commercial nursery in the St. Louis market, a trial and sales coordinator reported completing roughly three times as much evaluation work in a day with Numanac. The observations he captured also helped the team recognize a production issue before customers complained.
His experience shows how easier field documentation can improve both individual productivity and the information available for nursery production decisions.
More evaluations in the same working day
The coordinator spent almost his entire day moving through the nursery, evaluating plant material, coordinating trials, and supporting sales.
Across the operation, much of the recordkeeping began with pen and paper. Observations made in the field were later transferred into Excel, Word documents, Google Sheets, or other systems. Recording information involved additional work after the plants had already been evaluated.
With Numanac, he could capture observations as he worked. Wearing earbuds, he spoke his notes while moving through the nursery and conducting whole-house evaluations.
The effect on his daily capacity was substantial.
"I could do three times what I could get done in a day using Numanac versus without."
For someone whose job depended on physically evaluating plants, that meant more of the day could go toward the work that required his experience and attention. Documentation became part of the evaluation itself.
A map that revealed a wider production problem
The most compelling discovery came when the team looked at the accumulated observations on the map.
A particular spiraea variety was performing poorly across multiple crops. Seeing the observations together made the wider pattern visible and helped the team recognize that more plants needed to go into production before customers complained.
The significance reached beyond the affected plants. Information gathered during everyday evaluations was helping the nursery anticipate a production need.
The coordinator described this as an unexpected source of value. He had started using Numanac to save time in his own role. Now, the records he was creating were informing decisions with consequences across the business.
"It's not just my job anymore. Now it's the whole org that is benefiting from this."
Turning field knowledge into better production decisions
A single observation can tell a grower that a crop needs attention. Observations viewed together can reveal whether the same issue is recurring elsewhere and help the team decide what to investigate or change.
In this case, the connection was concrete: repeated signs of poor plant performance pointed to a need for additional production.
For a nursery, that kind of visibility can support decisions about where to focus attention, which crops need follow-up, and what future availability may require. The value grows when the knowledge gathered during a field walk becomes useful to the people responsible for production and sales.
The coordinator's experience illustrates that connection. Capturing observations more easily increased his evaluation capacity. Viewing those observations geographically helped the team recognize a broader issue. That insight gave them an opportunity to plan ahead of customer complaints.
An opportunity for nursery production and trialing teams
Based on his experience, the coordinator saw particular potential for larger nurseries with dedicated trialing, research, production, or scouting teams. He also emphasized the importance of leadership support in making the workflow part of how an operation works.
His conviction about the application was clear:
"I know that there are nurseries. I know that there are growers that need this."
For teams evaluating plant material every day, Numanac offers a practical starting point: capture what is happening while you are with the plants, then use those observations to build a clearer view of the operation.
See Numanac in your nursery workflow
Bring a real evaluation, trialing, or scouting workflow to a demo. We'll show you how Numanac can help your team capture observations in the field, review them on a map, and use that information to guide the next production conversation.