GROW - Smart farming using ag apps

  • by Jennifer Kneuss
  • March 14, 2013
  • 384
                        
Summary: Technology use is constantly on the rise on today’s farms. Now, farmers are beginning to discover the advantages of using specialized smart phone apps in their operations as well. In the smart phone world, specialized applications, known as ‘apps’, are plentiful. You name it, and there’s an app for it. Some apps are simply for entertainment, while others are informative, interactive, and highly useful. Farmers today find themselves faced with an overwhelming selection of apps for their smart phones. A search for “agriculture” one day on the IPhone store found 307 apps. Two days later, that number had risen to 310. Android platforms also offer hundreds of such apps. Quite a few of the apps are devoted to information: farm magazines, weather forecasts, or cattle and grain market reports. Others provide ways to keep track of herd health and calving records; calculate rates for lime, phosphorus, and potassium applications; help identify invasive weeds or both beneficial and harmful insects; or are farm planning tools. Many are provided by manufacturers or suppliers of farm equipment, seed, and fertilizers, while others are privately provided. A notable number are available at no charge or for very low costs. “I use a weather app a lot, but there are apps for seed selection, input rates, nutrient applications, and more,” said Melvin Lahmers, Certified Crop Advisor at TMK in Bakersville. “Personally, I still do the math myself. But I can see where they are going to be really helpful.” He noted that it can be helpful to him when making recommendations when a farmer uses an insect or weed identification app in the field and does some of the preliminary investigation. “He might not have time to bring that insect or leaf in to me in a timely manner, but he can identify it right in the field.” “It’s mostly the younger generation that uses the smart phone apps the most. Probably the one most used is the weather apps. Between that and grain pricing, those are the most used around here. The information is there at your fingertips,” said a local dairy farmer about using technology on his own farm. “Most planters can be adapted to GPS use. The simple use is just knowing how far you’ve planted. When you get more complicated with the self-guided planting, that goes into more expense. You have farm up to 2,000 to 3,000 acres to use the Variable Rate technology to make it cost feasible,” he said of the more expensive on-farm technology. “Phone apps don’t cost much.” Andrea Christiansen, 32, is a soybean and corn farmer in northwestern Ohio. “We don't use a lot of apps yet,” she noted. “I use a weather app and a market app, mostly. I also check out Farm Journals’ AgWeb app to check farm news and markets a few times a week. However, I will be using a new app for tank mixing for this spring. I downloaded it in the fall, and put in some hypothetical information to see if the calculations were the same as my long hand calculations. They always were, so I now have confidence in it and will be using it this spring when we go out to mix and spray herbicides.” Christiansen said that she has looked into using other available apps. “I have checked out other free ag apps that I have seen in an article or on a TV program, but I have kept very few because they haven’t provided any information that would help me on our farm. Chances are, if the app costs money I am not going to even try it unless someone can show me exactly what you can do with it and I can see if it would be something I would use on the farm.”


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