When people think of farming it’s often with a classical mindset. People might find themselves surprised by a visit to their local farm. At least if they’re expecting something out of American Gothic. The modern farm is surprisingly advanced. In today’s farms, people with the best technology have an advantage.
In this article we’ll examine the agriculture apps farmers get a big advantage from. We’ll rank them based on overall applicability and usefulness. With additional considerations also taken into account.
7. Monsanto’s Weed ID
Monsanto’s Weed ID doesn’t rank low due to any usability issues. Instead it’s lower on the list due to limited applicability. When it works, it works wonderfully.
But it’s mostly useful for farmers in Canada. This rules out a rather large portion of North America. However, Canadian farmers have a lot to love about this app. It provides detailed identification for a wide variety of weeds. The app even helps track projected growth patterns.
It even syncs with a detailed database so that one always has up to the date information. Additionally, it’s fully free to use.
6. Climate Fieldview
Climate Fieldview’s main function is almost self descriptive. It does just that, gives one a detailed view of field growth patterns based on weather conditions. The main idea for the app involves optimizing and maximizing growth of one’s crops.
To do this, the app gives a full suite of useful tools. One of the more notable aspects involves generalized growth projections. People can also find detailed information about exact climate readings.
And of course one can also intuit generalized growth patterns from this data as well. The app is available for free on iOS based devices.
5. Farm Futures
Farm Futures is the official app of the publication by the same name. It provides a similar service too. Just far more up to date with the latest news. It’s not very big on user interaction, which pushes it somewhat lower on the list.
But it does provide factual and concise information. It’s news for farmers and by farmers. As such, it pushes past a lot of the superfluous information.
The people behind it know how valuable a farmer’s time is. And they respect that by keeping things concise and pithy. This places it among the best agriculture apps for news.
4. Grower’s Edge
Growers Edge sits among the agriculture apps which focus more on economics. It’s also among the few apps specifically for Android. The fact that it deals so heavily with selling rather than growing crops places it somewhat lower on the list.
It’s a solid and valuable app. Even more so for the platform and free price point. But it’s it’s main utility works best when combined with other agriculture apps.
When one does so it can help get the best price on crops. However, it does provide some basic information on growing conditions. And in particular it has some good information on weather conditions.
3. BASF’s Weed ID
BASF’s Weed ID scores somewhat lower among agriculture apps due to geographical limitations. Unlike many other region specific apps, it’s not specifically locked to the UK.
But much of the internal database is specific to that region. So one should rank it much higher if within that area. But outside, the features won’t be nearly as useful.
However, when it works correctly one can find some powerful features. It basically works as an easy to use flowchart. But like many of the top agriculture apps, it uses a strong visual dynamic. So one doesn’t just rely on text to identify weeds.
Insted, the app essentially guides one through the use of actual images. This makes it easy to identify weeds. And from there, one can easily choose the best method of dealing with them. It might be of limited usefulness outside the UK. But as a free app, it’s still a useful tool for any farmer.
2. iSOYLscout
Every farmer becomes quite familiar with his land. One of the more important things that people forget about is the sheer size of it. People often lose keys or general daily use items around the house. But when working on a farm one becomes use to ownership of huge amounts of land.
iSOYLscout centers around geographical management of a farm. One can use the app’s GPS enabled features to essentially map out specific areas. For example, one might make particular note of areas which showed potential signs of infestations or the like. Or where unusual growth patterns had become more noticable.
An in-app subscription can even enable cloud services. This provides more efficient ability to sync app data between different points. So, for example, workers could easily share data on specific areas.
1. Lely T4C Inherd
The only possible issue with Lely T4C Inherd comes from complexity. It’s one of the single best tools out there. But it takes a while to learn how to use it.
When one does give it a chance though, it manages almost every aspect of farm life. The most powerful features regard timing though. It’s designed around careful time management for several different agricultural situations. Basically, it handles almost any kind of farming planner.
And this time management isn’t simply putting items into a list. It’s made by people who understand exactly how to accomplish each task. As such, it perfectly manages how a farmer accomplishes it.
Summing Up
In conclusion, one can see that technology is moving forward at an incredible pace. The latest agriculture apps give farmers some amazing advantages. However, one thing should also be clear by looking at the apps.
And that’s the fact that discussion of the options helps everyone. Each of the apps has something to offer. But they’re so expansive that there’s always more to learn by talking about them. As such, everyone should consider discussing their experiences with them.
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