To bring some clarity for no-tillers, No-Till Farmer surveyed readers about what mobile apps they use in their operations. According to the recent poll, there are plenty of growers who’ve jumped on the farming-app bandwagon, but others are still mulling the idea or flatly refusing to do so.

We have compiled a list of the most mentioned apps in the survey along with a very brief description of their functions. They are broken up by category and are by no means an exhaustive list of available ag apps, but rather a representation of the most popular ones mentioned by survey respondents.

2015 App Survey Results

Non-Ag Utility Apps: 

• Mapquest — Provides live maps, GPS, voice navigation, and live traffic updates.

• CamScanner — A mobile document scanning and sharing app. Allows user to scan, store, sync and collaborate on various contents across smartphones, tablets and computers.

• Dropbox —Lets users bring all their photos, documents and videos anywhere and share them easily with their mobile devices. Can access any file you save to app from all your computers, mobile devices and the web.

• Find My Lost Phone!— Lets uses GPS navigational technology to locate or track lost or stolen phones. 

• Twitter — Provides users with a smart phone or tablet friendly interface of Twitter’s website for a mobile device.

• Facebook — Provides users with a smart phone or tablet friendly interface of Facebook’s website for a mobile device.   

• Evernote — Allows users to record notes of all types, from short lists to lengthy research and access them on any device. It can be used to store web articles, handwritten notes and photos to keep all the details in one place. 

• Google Drive — Enables users to access any Google cloud-stored files from any smartphone, tablet or computer.

Fertility Program and Spraying Apps:

• TeeJet SpraySelect — Allows users to quickly and easily choose the proper tip for a given application such as broadcasting or fertilizer spraying.

• Agrian Mobile —Allows users to instantly find crop protection product information from a database of over 7,000 products.

• Tank Mix & Rainfast Guide— This app, built for Western Canadian farmers, is a resource for herbicide rainfastness and the proper order to tank mix herbicides.

• CDS John Blue Blockage Monitor — This app is for use with CDS-John Blue's Liquid Blockage Monitor system. The system alerts users when a ball and flow in an individual row has dropped below a user-selected level.

Mapping and Scouting Apps:

• Connected Farm — This app by Trimble allows users to use GPS for field mapping and scouting applications. It can be used for mapping field boundaries, locating irrigation pivots, marking flags and entering scouting information for points, lines and polygon areas.

• AGRIplot — Allows users to plot any area on a map by simply walking around their property and adding landmark points, or dragging and dropping pins anywhere on the map.

• GPS Fields Area Measure — Enables users to manage the area, distance and perimeter on GPS maps of their farms.
Google Maps — Provides users with a smart phone or tablet friendly interface of the Google maps service for a mobile device.   

• Google Earth — Provides users with a smart phone or tablet friendly interface of the Google maps service for a mobile device.

• Planimeter — This app is map ruler tool for all kinds of measurements on Google Maps: distance, area, angle and bearing.

• Encirca View— Allows users to capture information with a GPS powered field documentation tool. The app can pinpoint users’ field location via satellite imagery and record notes or photos on the spot.

• Clinometer — This app is a tool for slope measurement.

Weather:

• WGN Weather — Provides users with a smart phone or tablet friendly interface of the WGN Weather service for a mobile device.

• Weather Channel — Provides users with a smart phone or tablet friendly interface of the Weather Channel service for a mobile device.

• Accuweather — Provides users with a smart phone or tablet friendly interface of the Accuweather service for a mobile device.

• Climate — Provides up-to-the-minute, field-level weather, field workability, and crop growth stage information.

• Weather Underground —  Provides local weather forecasts in addition to interactive radar, satellite maps and severe weather alerts.

Yield:

• YieldCheck — A Precision Planting Inc. app that provides growers with methods to calculate and store corn yield estimates.

Weed Identification:

• ID Weeds — Allows users to search for weeds by their common or latin name, view a list of weeds, or identify weeds based upon a number of different characteristics. Details about each weed are presented, along with photograph(s) of the weed specified.

Seeding and Planting:

• Pioneer Planting Rate Estimator —Allows the user to examine historical yield response curves to help estimate an optimum planting rate for Pioneer Brand Corn Products. 

• Air Cart Maximizer — This app calculates the maximum number of acres per fill based on the size of each compartment in your air cart and the desired fertilizer and seeding rates.

Farm Management and Reference Apps:

• Ag PhD — Ag PhD has a full suite of apps that cover soil testing, fertilizer removal, field guides, planting populations, deficiencies, drainage tile calculators and harvest loss calculators.

• Grower’s Edge — Provides farmers with local, personalized information including: cash bids, corn and soybean prices, markets, market commentary pinpointed weather, profit managers and ag news.

• Purdue Extension Corn & Soybean Field Guide —Provides a range of tools and information to help users effectively manage corn and soybean production. Information provided includes: planting tips, growth and development, nutrient recommendations and nutrient deficiencies.

• FarmLogs —Allows users to see recent rain on their fields, track field operations and get crop history for all your fields.

• FieldView —Enables growers to collect and understand field data through maps, records and reports. It combines real-time cab monitoring with field data analysis tools.

• Extreme Beans — Allows soybean farmers to access recent soybean research from their mobile phone. It also includes a calculator that allows them to calculate their required returns and most effective seeding rates in order to generate high yield results.

Soil Testing:

• SoilWeb — This app has a GPS based, real-time access to USDA-NRCS soil survey data, formatted for mobile devices. This application retrieves graphical summaries of soil types associated with the user's current geographic location.

Ag Markets and News:

• CHS Grain Trading — Allows users to market grain online. With the app, users can make and monitor offers, as well as manage confirmed business with their local CHS location.

• FarmWeekNow — Provides users with the latest information about Illinois agriculture from the staffs of FarmWeek, RFD Radio Network and Illinois Farm Bureau’s News and Communications division.

• SF Plus — Brings the pages of Successful Farming magazine to a users mobile device.