7 min read · Updated 5 August 2026
The batch number is the whole thing
An auditor does not stop at “you sprayed on the 20th”. The question is which container, and where that container came from. That is the link nobody has on paper, because the drum goes in the bin months before anybody asks.
Write the batch off the label at the moment you mix, not at the end of the week. It is the only field on the register you cannot reconstruct later.
Record the delivery too
A batch number only proves something if it traces to a purchase. Capture the delivery note when the drum arrives — product, batch, quantity, expiry — and the two halves meet on their own.
Re-entry and pre-harvest interval are not the same number
This one costs real money. They protect different things and are almost never equal.
| Re-entry interval | Pre-harvest interval | |
|---|---|---|
| Measured in | Hours | Days |
| Protects | The person walking into the land | The load you are going to sell |
| Who checks it | You, and a labour inspector | The silo, packhouse or export buyer |
| What a breach costs | A safety failure, often unseen | A rejected delivery — sometimes a whole consignment |
You can walk in safely and still cut illegally
A 48-hour re-entry with a 21-day pre-harvest interval on the same product is ordinary. Two days after spraying the land is safe to enter and the crop is nineteen days away from being legal to harvest. Keeping both in one column is how that gets missed.
Write the active ingredient, not just the brand
Brands get renamed and reformulated; the active ingredient is what the regulation, the maximum residue limit and the buyer's laboratory all speak in. Record both.
A register you can start today
Spray register — free template
Opens in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers. No sign-up.
| Date | Land / block | Product | Active ingredient | Batch number | Rate | Measured in | Hectares | Applied by | Re-entry (hours) | Wait before harvest (days) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-20 | Rivier blok | Karate Zeon | Lambda-cyhalothrin 50 g/l | KZ-88213 | 0.2 | l/ha | 5.9 | J. Mokoena | 48 | 21 | Still, 18°C |
| 2026-07-03 | Stasie blok | Roundup Turbo | Glyphosate 450 g/l | RT-1190 | 2.5 | l/ha | 16.7 | P. van Zyl | 24 | — | Light wind |
- Act 36 of 1947 requires a record of every agricultural remedy applied. The active ingredient matters as much as the brand — an auditor asks for the a.i.
- The batch number is the column everybody skips and every auditor follows. Write it off the drum while the drum is still in front of you; it goes in the bin long before the audit.
- Re-entry and pre-harvest interval are DIFFERENT numbers and are never the same. Re-entry is hours and protects the person walking in. PHI is days and protects the load — it is what a silo, packhouse or export buyer tests for.
- Read both off the product label. The label is the authority, not this sheet and not us.
The label is the authority
Rates, re-entry and pre-harvest intervals come off the product label — not off this page, and not off any software. Anything that fills those in for you is guessing with your load.
Let the register check itself
FarmBind flags a spray with no batch, a batch that matches nothing you bought, and a harvest taken before the residue cleared — before an auditor does.
Start freeCommon questions
- How long must I keep spray records?
- At least five years, and some buyer schemes and export programmes ask for longer. Storage is cheap and a missing season cannot be recovered.
- What if I cannot find the batch number for an old spray?
- Leave it blank and say so. A blank is a gap you can explain; an invented number is a finding you cannot.
- Does a spreadsheet satisfy Act 36?
- The law is about the record, not the medium, so a complete spreadsheet is a valid register. The practical problem is that a spreadsheet cannot tell you when it is incomplete — and incomplete is its usual state.