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Managing Seedling Inventory

Nursery Inventory in Terraware represents the seedlings your organization is growing and preparing for planting. You can track seedlings through each stage of growth — from germination through to ready-to-plant — and maintain a connection between your seedling batches and the seed accessions they came from. Before you can add inventory, you'll need at least one Nursery set up in Terraware. Admins and Managers can add and manage inventory.

Add Inventory

You can add nursery inventory in three ways: manually one at a time, by importing a CSV file in bulk, or by withdrawing seeds from an existing Accession. Withdrawing from an Accession is the recommended approach when possible, as it maintains a direct connection between your seed data and your seedling data.

Add inventory manually
  1. Navigate to Seedlings > Inventory and click Add Inventory.
  2. Fill in the required fields (marked with an asterisk):
    • Species — select from your organization's species list.
    • Receiving Nursery — the nursery you're adding inventory to.
    • Date Added — the date the seeds or seedlings were physically added to the nursery.
  3. Optionally, fill in the quantity fields. Note that quantities work as follows:
    • Germinating Quantity — seeds added to the nursery that have not yet germinated. Germinating quantity is not included in the total seedling count.
    • Active Growth — plants that have germinated but are not yet ready to plant.
    • Hardening Off Quantity — plants being exposed to higher stress conditions in preparation for planting. Not yet ready to plant.
    • Ready to Plant Quantity — plants ready for planting. What counts as "ready" is up to your team and is often species-specific.
    • Total Quantity — calculated automatically as the sum of all non-germinating quantities. This field cannot be edited directly.
  4. Optionally, enter an Estimated Ready Date. Terraware will send a notification on this date to remind you to check on your plants and adjust quantities.
  5. Add any Notes as needed.
  6. Click Save.
Import inventory from a CSV file

If you have an existing seedling inventory list, you can import it into Terraware in bulk using a CSV file.

  1. Navigate to Seedlings > Inventory, click the three dots icon to the right of the Add Inventory button, and click Import.
  2. Select the Nursery you want to import inventory into.
  3. Click the link to download the CSV template and open it in your spreadsheet application.
  4. Fill in the template. Use the following accepted values for each column:
    • Scientific Name — required.
    • Germinating Quantity — numbers only.
    • Seedling Quantity — numbers only.
    • Stored Date — YYYY-MM-DD format.
  5. Save the file in CSV format.
  6. Back in Terraware, select your CSV file and click Import. Note: If there are formatting issues in your file, Terraware will ask you to correct them and re-upload.
  7. When the import is complete, your data will appear in the inventory list.
Add inventory from a seed accession withdrawal

Withdrawing seeds from an Accession and sending them to a Nursery is the best way to maintain a traceable connection between your seed bank data and your seedling inventory. The withdrawn quantity will be added to the nursery as Germinating Quantity.

  1. Navigate to Seeds > Accessions and click the accession you want to withdraw from.
  2. Click Withdraw.
  3. Select Nursery as the purpose.
  4. Select the Nursery you want to send the seeds to under Destination.
  5. Enter the withdrawal quantity and any additional details.
  6. Click Withdraw.

View Inventory

Navigate to Seedlings > Inventory to see your organization's full seedling inventory. You can view inventory aggregated by Species, Nursery, or individual Batch — click a tab to switch between these views.

Search: Click the search icon at the top of the table and type what you're looking for. Matching entries are highlighted in the list. If the list is filtered, only matches within the filtered results are highlighted.

Filter: Click the filter icon at the top of the table to filter by any column.

Show empty batches: Click the funnel icon at the top of the table to include species, nurseries, and batches that previously had inventory but are now empty.

Download: Click the download icon to export the list as a CSV file. If the list is filtered, only the filtered results will be exported.

View Inventory details

Terraware organizes seedling inventory into batches — a new batch is created each time you add a new inventory entry. This allows you to track groups of plants individually and maintain a link between each batch and its source accession, if one exists.

To view the details of a batch, click the species name in the inventory list to open the inventory details page, then click the batch number in the table. From the batch details page you can see the batch's associated accession ID (if applicable) and update the batch quantities.

Update batch quantities and status

Use this when you need to move plants between growth stages — for example, from germinating to not ready, or from not ready to ready to plant.

  1. Navigate to the inventory details page for the species you want to update.
  2. Find the batch you want to update and click the three dots to the left of the Withdraw button on that row.
  3. Select a purpose for the change.
  4. Enter the quantities you want to add, move, or remove from each stage.
  5. Click Save.

To move quantities between specific stages:

  • Click the pencil icon next to Germinating Quantity to move quantity from germinating to not ready.
  • Click the pencil icon next to Not Ready Quantity to move quantity from not ready to ready to plant.

Note: Updating quantities this way will overwrite the existing values for that batch. Review the current quantities carefully before saving.

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