Who this is for
Anyone entering feed data for a dairy carbon assessment who needs a blend that does not exist yet, or needs to change one that does.
Before you start
Decide whether the blend should be available to every farm or to one farm only. That is the Scope field, and you can change it later.
Steps
Open the blend manager
- In the left-hand menu, select Farm Data, then Blend Manager. The Blends page lists every blend in your company.
- Use the All, Generic and Farm Specific tabs to narrow the list, or search across all columns. Filters and Columns refine it further.
You can also work with blends without leaving an assessment. In the Feed & Ration section, select Manage blends, or open the blend dropdown on a feed row and choose Create new. The blend creator is the same either way.
Create a blend
- Select Create Blend.
- Enter a Blend Name. This is required.
- Set the Formulation Date. Use it to tell versions of the same blend apart.
- Set Scope. Generic makes the blend available to every farm. Farm Specific limits it to one farm, which you pick from the farm selector. Starting from inside an assessment prefills that farm.
- Select Add Component, then set Type to Ingredient or Blend. A blend can contain other blends, which is how ration-fed systems are built.
- For an ingredient, set Source, Variation and Country. Name fills in from your choices and can be typed over.
- Enter % FM (Fresh weight/as-fed) for each component. The total below the table must reach 100%.
- Check Overall Blend Values — CF, Protein, Energy, NDF, DM and Digestibility — which ODOS calculates from the components.
- Select Create Blend.
Add ingredients from a CSV
Instead of adding components one at a time, select Import Ingredients CSV. The import reads your column titles, so there is no template to follow. ODOS matches each row against its ingredient database. Where a row cannot be matched, pick from the suggested matches, or continue and add those ingredients yourself.
Override a calculated value
Ingredient values and Overall Blend Values can both be typed over. An overridden value keeps what you typed and stops following the components. Overridden fields show on a yellow background.
Feed grown on the farm
Set Country to Farm grown for feed the farm grows itself, such as silage. Carbon footprint then shows as zero.
Edit, duplicate or delete a blend
Every row in the blend manager carries four actions: edit, see which farms use the blend, duplicate, and delete.
Duplicating is the quickest way to build a new formulation from an existing one. Deleting a blend removes it from the assessments using it; completed assessments keep the details they were completed with.
How to confirm it worked
- The blend appears in the list, dated today under LAST MODIFIED.
- The component total reads 100.0% in green.
- Overall Blend Values are populated rather than zero.
Common problems
The total will not reach 100%. Adjust % FM until it turns green.
A blend is missing on another farm. Its Scope is Farm Specific. Open the blend and change Scope to Generic.
The values look wrong. Something has been overridden. Look for the yellow background.
A completed assessment changed after a blend edit. Editing a blend does not alter a completed assessment, but resubmitting uses the new values.