There are two ways to add management information, through the web interface or from a spreadsheet. These are discussed in turn, below. Recall that managements can be associated with one or more treatments.
Managements refers to something that occurs at a specific time and has a quantity. Managements include actions that are done to a plant or ecosystem, such as the planting density or rate of fertilization, for example. Managements are distinct from treatments in that a treatment is used to categorically identify an experimental treatment, whereas a management is used to describe what has been done. Managements are the way a treatment becomes quantified. Each treatment is often associated with multiple managements. The combination of managements associated with a particular treatment will distinguish it from other treatments. The management types that can be entered into BETY are described in Table \ref{tab:managements}. Each management may be associated with one or more treatments. For example, in a fertilization experiment, planting, irrigation, and herbicide managements would be applied to all plots but the fertilization will be specific to a treatment. For a multi-year experiment, there may be multiple entries for the same type of management, reflecting, for example, repeated applications of herbicide or fertilizer.
note:Managements are not always required - and the level of detail depends on the scope of research. By default managements are recorded for Yields but not for Traits, unless specifically required by the data or project manager.
Date: in format YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM
Dateloc: date level of confidence, explained in Section \ref{sec:traits} and defined in Table \ref{tab:traits}.
Mgmttype: the name of the management being used. A list of standardized
management types can be found in Table \ref{tab:managements}
Level: a quantification of mgmttype
Units: refers to the units of the level. Units should be converted to those
in Table \ref{tab:managements}
Managements This is a list of managements to enter, with the most common management types in bold. It is more important to have management records for Yields than for traits. For greenhouse experiments, it is not necessary to include informaton on fertilizaton, lighting, or greenhouse temperature.
Management Type
Units
Definition
Notes
Burned
aboveground biomass burned
CO2 fumigation
ppm
Fertilization_X
kg x ha(^{-1})
fertilization rate, element X
Fungicide
kg x ha(^{-1})
add type of fungicide to notes
Grazed
years
livestock grazing
pre-experiment land use
Harvest
no units, just date, equivalent to coppice, aboveground biomass removal
Herbicide
kg x ha(^{-1})
add type of herbicide to notes: glyphosate, atrazine, many others
Irrigation
cm
convert volume area to depth as required
Light
W m(^{-2})
O3 fumigation
ppm
Pesticide
kg x ha(^{-1})
add type of pesticide to notes
Planting
plants m(^{-2})
Convert row spacing to planting density if possible
Seeding
kg seeds x ha(^{-1})
Tillage
no units, maybe depth; tillage is equivalent to cultivate
Managements can be entered via the web interface. First enter the management, and then associate it with one or more treatments. To associate a management with multiple treatments, first create the management, then edit the management and add treatment relationships.
When there is a long list of managements, the insert_managements scripts enables users to insert data organized in a text based (csv) file.
Preparing the csv file can be done in any spreadsheet program such as Excel or Google Sheets. The insertion is straightforward, but requires familiarity with the bash shell as well as administrative access to the Postgres database.
Required Fields the spreadsheet or CSV file must contain the following column headings:
These columns map to fields in the database (in the citations, treatments, and managements field). Each row must have non-empty values in each of these columns. Moreover, the citation columns must match exactly one row in the citations row of the database and the treatment name must match exactly one of the treatment rows associated with the matched citation.
Optional Fields The table may also contain the following column headings:
Each optional column heading corresponds to an optional field in the database managements table. The column can contain one or more empty rows.
If the table is prepared in a spreadsheet program, use the "save as --> .csv" option to export a single text based .csv file.
The insert_managements.rb script takes a CSV file describing managements to be added to the database as input and outputs a file containing SQL statements to do the required insertions.
The script insert_managements.rb is in the directory RAILS_ROOT/script. The complete usage instructions (also obtainable by running ./insert_managements --man) follow. For additional information, see Github issue #288
insert_managements.rbThe database used by the script is determined by the environment specified by the '--environment' option (or 'development' if not specified) and the contents of the configuration file 'config/database.yml'. (Run 'rake dbconf' to view the contents of this file on the command line.)
There are three options for using this script to update the production database.
Option A: Run the script on the production server in the Rails root directory of the production deployment of the BETYdb Rails app.
Upload the input CSV file to the production machine.
Log in to the production machine and cd to the root directory of production deployment of the BETYdb Rails app.
Run the script using the '--environment=production' option and with '--login' set to your own BETYdb Rails login for the production deployment. The command-line argument specifying the input CSV file path should match the location you uploaded it to.
After examining the resulting output file, apply it to the database with the command
(If your machine login doesn't match a PostgreSQL user name that has insert permissions on the production database, you will have to use the '-U' option to specify a user who does have such permission.)
Option B: Run the script on your local machine using an up-to-date copy of the BETYdb database.
To do this:
Switch to the root of the copy of the BETYdb Rails app you want to use.
For the copy of the BETYdb database connected to this copy of the Rails app, ensure that at least the citations and the treatments tables are up-to-date with the production copy of the BETYdb database. (If you have different databases specified for your development and your production environments, be sure that the environment you specify with the '--environment' option points to the right database.)
Run this script.
Upload the output file to the production server and apply it to the production database using the psql command given above.
Option C: Run the script on your local machine using a Rails environment connected to the production database.
Go to the copy of the BETYdb Rail app on your local machine that you wish to use.
Edit the file config/database.yml, adding the following section:
Most of these values can be copied from the production copy config/database.yml if you have access to it. The port and host entries are 'new'.
Set up an ssh tunnel to the production server using the command
This will log you into the production server, but at the same time it will connect port 8000 on your local machine with port 5432 (the PostgreSQL server port) on the production machine. (The choice of 8000 for port number is somewhat arbitrary, but whatever value you use should match the value you specified for the port number in the database.yml file.)
Run this script with the environment option '--environment=ebi'. (Again, the name 'ebi' for the environment is somewhat arbitrary, but the option value should match the name in your database.yml file.)
Continue as in step 4 under option B.