In today’s agriculture, a wide array of production help – from crop budgets, to input measurements, to market prices, to weather forecasts – is as nearby as a button on your phone or home computer.
Companies, Extension Services, government agencies and others have been rolling out computer applications or programs, or apps, as fast as they can develop them. Some of them are free; others carry a fee, so be sure to examine the fine print before you sign up. But which one is the best for your operation?
An app developed by the University of Missouri, ThermalAid, pulls in live weather data to help determine if livestock are affected by heat stress. It’s part of a larger effort by the school to provide educational and practical information about how heat affects both livestock and people.
Cattle Market Mobile provides the most recent auction yard prices from more than 250 locations; it also has a “Calf Calculator” that estimates the value of your calf, and a gestation calculator that produces an estimated calving date.
Producers can use the American Angus Association’s Angus Mobile App to get herd data, enter new records, search for registered herds and records, and get information on upcoming sales and recent shows.
Ranch Manager tracks cattle ID, pedigree, pasture location, and tracks cattle movements; it also has an Historical Data segment that produces a complete view of your cattle operation currently, and for every year entered. There is a charge for this software, which is available for either desktop or mobile via cloud.
For poultry growers, a recently released University of Georgia app called CHKMINVENT, which calculates how much houses should be ventilated during cold weather. Producers enter the outside temperature, the amount of water the chickens consume, the temperature inside the house and the size of the fans; CHKMINVENT tells them how long to run the fans in order to remove excess moisture and keep the birds comfortable.
For crop producers, the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture has introduced a Crop Enterprise Budgets app that allows budgets to be calculated from an iOS device anywhere. Growers can use it to evaluate the expected costs and returns for their upcoming crops on their iPhone, iPad or iPod; they can also adjust the app for variable conditions like soil types or production practices.
And another app from University of Missouri Extension, ID Weeds, helps the user identify more than 400 plant species found in fields, pastures, lawns or aquatic areas. There’s also an Android version of this app, as there is for many of the other apps listed here.
Also from the University of Arkansas, Hort Plants is available, which is a database with pictures of many landscaping plants common in the mid-South like trees, shrubs, vines, ground covers, ornamentals, annuals and perennials. Horticultural information accompanies each entry.
In addition to forecasting the weather, New Holland Agriculture’s Farming Weather Forecast and Services app that includes such features as estimated evapotranspiration, accumulated growing degree days and an almanac that compares current conditions with the average.
From Oklahoma State University and Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management Research Associate John Weir, comes a new app that can assist with prescribed fires. RxBurn Tracker has unique ghost image capabilities that let the user match photos of the site before and after in order to observe and document the regrowth of vegetation following a burn; it also lets the landowner record information like the burn date, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction.
The above mentioned apps are just scratching the surface, and there are more farming apps on the horizon.
