Butte County rice farmer Ryan Schohr uses a smartphone in his day-to-day farming operation to access apps developed for agriculture, which he says ultimately saves money and increases his efficiency.
In the pickup, atop a tractor or at a commodity meeting, a farmer's office is wherever he or she happens to be, which is why applications or "apps" for mobile smartphones and smartbooks have become attractive business tools for agriculture.
"You basically have everything with you and you are instantly connected with communities and other people and that is different than going back to your computer at the end of the day and typing things in and being disconnected," said Kay Neuenhofen, a software engineer and consultant from San Francisco who has been in discussions with farmers about app development for agriculture. "It immediately creates that sense of connectivity and immediate access."
Farmers are increasingly gravitating to mobile smartphone technology for use on the farm, according to a paper released this month by Paulsen Marketing of Sioux Falls, S.D. In "Adoption of Communication Tools in Agriculture," 25 farm families answered questions about how they are using communication technology in their operations. The report predicted that "based on current trends and research, we can assume that half of all producers will have mobile Internet access by the end of 2011."
Ryan Schohr uses an app to take an area measurement of the field.
The paper also revealed that most of the mobile usage by farmers revolved around markets, weather and interpersonal communications.
More apps are being developed to assist farmers and ranchers with such tasks as tracking irrigation, monitoring soil, or recording herd information.
Rice farmer Ryan Schohr of Gridley uses his smartphone to access an app that provides the amount of degree days or heat units for a particular area.
"The degree-day app uses Google Earth images and you can click anywhere and find out the growing degree days that have occurred in the current year and month, and year and month previous," Schohr said. "This helps us make more efficient decisions with regard to management of our crops, such as how much fertilizer or nutrients we need to apply."
Using another app, Schohr can calculate the distance and area of any field.
"All I need to do is walk or drive the area with this app and from this information, for example, I can calculate how much seed or fertilizer I need," Schohr said. "The app uses the GPS on the phone and gives you the distance in feet, yards, kilometers, meters, whatever. And it logs your track so if you make a complete square, it will give you the area of that unit that you measured."
Prior to having a smartphone, Schohr said, he calculated distance and area with a GPS attached to a vehicle or tractor, which he said was more complicated, costly and time-consuming.
"I've had my phone for about a year and I didn't think I would be inclined to use it very much on the farm and I found out otherwise," Schohr said. "It is really remarkable what these little things can do."
Ted Sheely of Lemoore farms cotton, tomatoes, onions, pistachios and winegrapes on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, which suffers chronic water shortages. He maintains irrigation apps to track his water usage and efficiently manage irrigation.
"I use irrigation management apps that tell me if I have water going in a particular field, for how many hours, and what the soil condition is. As it wets the ground, it gives me a graph and shows me the wetting patterns," Sheely said. "This is an inexpensive way to get detailed information that you didn't have before."
Looking for better ways to farm, Sheely said he and his son are working with developers to build new apps that best fit their operation.
"My son is actually working on some new apps with the app builders that will give us our satellite information and overlay it with soil types for the smartphone, iPad or whatever," Sheely said.
The University of California is also getting involved in the business of app development, with the SoilWeb application that performs location-based queries from GPS-enabled cell phones.
"The app developers took the old (U.S. Agriculture Department) soil survey data—physical maps and books—and put all of those online so people can actually use it and mine it for data," said Paul Verdegaal, a UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor in San Joaquin County. "The soil maps help growers look at the physical aspects of a piece of ground. They may be deciding, 'What crop do I want to plant here and if it is a perennial crop, what type of rootstock? How am I going to manage it? How's it going to be blocked off for irrigation to make it more manageable and efficient?' The maps can help provide a guideline as to some general management decisions both in the establishment of a crop and its management later on."
Bound by the rules of Mother Nature, farmers must constantly monitor the changing weather conditions and apps make this a simpler process. Amador County winegrape grower Jim Spinetta is interested in tracking any frost, wind or heat that could cause problems for his grapes.
Farmers want to keep input costs down, so Spinetta also takes advantage of an app that enables him to do that, one item at a time.
"An app that pays for my iPhone each month allows me to scan the bar-code on any item and it gives me the lowest price online or by local vendors," Spinetta said. "Most vendors will meet or beat the price by 10 percent."
Critical to operating any farm or ranch is being able to monitor the markets for fuel and commodity prices.
"I have an app that I use to see what crude oil did today, what gold did today, what cotton did today and what wheat did today," Sheely said.
"It is the same as with a lot of other technology: You can close your eyes to technology and just continue to do things the way you've done them before, but you are losing an edge compared to people that are using that technology and that can make things happen a lot easier," Neuenhofen said.
Aaron Lange, vineyard manager at Lange Twins Winery and Vineyards in Acampo, who also develops information systems for the business, recently made the transition to a smartphone.
"What made me switch was the speed of the phone, the flat form is better and faster, and the ability to have apps and be able to access weather data and spreadsheets and all sorts of stuff on your phone," Lange said. "Now that smartphones are basically replacing laptops as mobile devices in a lot of cases and their capabilities have skyrocketed, I just felt that I couldn't wait any longer."
posted Dec 1st 2010 11:02AM
