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Mobile Apps For agriculture

There are several Apps that companies and public institutions have developed with the unique goal of increasing product exposure, reaching broad and progressive audiences, and improving effectiveness in communicating news, educational materials, and support tools. Without doubt, Extension is changing and the audience is evolving. During the winter meetings we’ve had this year, we have seen more and more people using smartphones and tablets for checking email, news, weather, grain price information, and more.

In the last month, the K-State Sorghum and Soybean Schools offered a concurrent session titled “New Technologies: Use of Mobile Apps.” From the audience attending these schools, almost 100 percent said they used Apps on a daily basis, primarily to check on the weather or grain prices .

During the past year, I have been investigating and evaluating the wide variety of available Apps for agricultural purposes. Most of the Apps presented in this article are free to download. Before paying for any App, please check online reviews or consult with any specialist working with that App in order to understand the benefits in using it and how it can assist you in your daily farming operations. As a general rule, an App needs to be “easy to use” and “intuitive.” Most Apps do not come with a user guide or a manual. Take all these points into consideration before downloading and using Apps.

I’ve created a subjective classification with the goal of dividing Apps by their different uses and purposes.

Ag-Apps classifications:

  • ID Apps: For identification purposes (weeds, insects, diseases, and nutrients)
  • CALC Apps: For calculating purposes (nutrient removal calculations, tank mixes, volume to spray, etc.)
  • ECON Apps: For checking grain prices, market evolutions, fertilizer price trends, news and finances
  • SCOUT Apps: For scouting purposes or for geo-positioning (soil sampling, recording notes, soil types, etc.)
  • GUIDE Apps: For diagnosing crop production issues in the field, primarily related to field guides (crop management: insect, disease, weed, and more)
  • GAG Apps: GAG (General Ag-Apps) for general use, weather-related, meetings, magazines, and more

1) ID Apps

The Apps under this category are primarily utilized for identification purposes. This category can be sub-divided into different topics:

                A) Weeds

                B) Insects

                C) Diseases

                D) Nutrients

1A) Weeds ID

These Apps can help identify a weed, or search for weeds by name, region, or appearance. The ID Weeds (University of Missouri) and/or Weedalert.com are both very good for weed ID purposes.

Figure 1. Top 9 Weeds ID Apps and the ID Weeds App from the University of Missouri.

Source:Ksu.edu

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