Scenario files & fuel price data
Use these public files to prepare a scenario or read fuel benchmarks. The calculator runs in your browser; there is no calculation API or MCP server in this release. It does not upload farm inputs.
Scenario format, version 1
JSON Schema · Field guide for developers and AI assistants · Operation catalog and default assumptions
Start with an example, replace the planning assumptions with user-supplied values, validate against the schema, and open the JSON file with Open scenario in the calculator. Ask the user to review acres, prices, activities, hauling and drying before using the results. These examples are planning defaults, not actual farm records or agronomic recommendations.
Both examples use the same 1,000 corn acres and 1,000 soybean acres, the calculator's editable defaults, and dated benchmark prices from the build snapshot. They retain every crop's three programs, even when only one is selected.
Operation-month scenarios, version 2
New Save scenario files use version 2. Open the operation-month example for the approved editable schedule. Version 1 files still open in current-price mode.
Each activity and hauling/irrigation/drying group has a schedule array: month (1–12, or null while incomplete), yearOffset (0 or -1), and share (percent of that activity’s existing fuel use). Allocations must total 100% to calculate. pricing.mode is current or operations; pricing.year selects the season. pricing.overrides uses YYYY-MM:fuel keys with numeric USD/gallon or an empty string for explicitly unavailable. pricing.frozen retains prices, status, observation dates and sources at save time. New months added after reopening resolve from the loaded snapshot; existing saved months stay fixed until Reset is used.
Past months use available monthly benchmarks. Future months in the selected season use the current quote and are labelled estimated. Missing past months remain unavailable; the current month is labelled month to date. The same schedule and consumption apply in both comparison years. Previous-year fall work uses the preceding calendar year. These are fuel-use timing estimates rather than a record of actual purchases.
Units and unknown values
| Field | Unit or meaning |
|---|---|
| acres / yield | Crop acres / bushels per crop acre |
| prices | USD per US gallon; offroad = Illinois farm diesel, road = Midwest retail road diesel, propane = Iowa propane |
| rate / passes / coverage | Diesel gallons per acre per pass / pass count / percent of crop acres (0–100) |
| share | Percent (0–100), not a fraction |
| hauling | One-way miles, bushels per load, round-trip miles per gallon, idle minutes per load and gallons per idle hour |
| irrigation.gallons | Seasonal diesel gallons per irrigated acre |
| drying | Moisture percentages and propane gallons per wet bushel per percentage point removed |
null means unknown, not zero. Zero is a deliberate zero input. For historical price overrides only, null looks up that month's price from the loaded snapshot; an empty string "" freezes an unavailable price. Save scenario freezes the resolved comparison prices, so a later source update does not alter a saved comparison. A structurally valid file may still have incomplete inputs and an unavailable total.
Monthly price feeds
Monthly JSON · Monthly CSV · Detailed verified observations
Each calendar month includes all four fuels. JSON uses null and CSV uses a blank price with status missing where no verified observation exists. Prices retain calculation precision. Observation counts and first/last dates describe the observations actually included; source IDs in JSON resolve through its sources array. CSV includes publisher, region, price basis and source URLs directly.
Monthly means use available report week-ending or observation dates. Regional observations take precedence over national weekly references; a weekly reference is explicitly labelled and is not a regional monthly mean. Missing values are never interpolated or carried forward. The snapshot month is marked partial. These calculated means differ from EIA's separately published monthly series. Gasoline is history-only and never enters the calculator's cost equations.
Offline use
Download the self-contained offline calculator. Its prices remain fixed to its bundled snapshot. Internet access is needed only to visit external source, biography or app links.