10 top farming apps you need to download

It is hard to deny that our lives currently revolve around modern smarts and gadgets. According to a report compiled by tech specialist Cisco, the average person owns 2.3 mobile devices in 2016, with the number expected to go up to 3.5 per person in 2021.

Just recently, at the 2018 Tractor and Machinery Association of Australia conference, it was revealed that currently, over 25 companies in Australia alone are offering mobile apps, automation or robotics especially catering to the agricultural industry, when there were only three companies doing so in 2014.

“Embrace tech, not shy away from it,” was the key message from the experts to farmers, so with that in mind, here are 10 very useful mobile applications to help you farm smarter in 2018 and beyond.

Type: Weather

Price: Free for the basic version; $2.99 a year for the enhanced ‘Silver Subscription’

There are hundreds of weather apps out there, with some more useful to the agriculture industry than others. One which is constantly recommended to us is Elders Weather from Elders Rural Services Australia.

Available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play, it can be used on both smartphones and tablets.

Like most of the other apps, Elders Weather shows current weather conditions, 7-day forecasts, conditions for the next 48 hours (with hourly breakdown), local and national radar, observation history, sunrise and sunset, tides and moon, satellite and synoptic charts, and warnings.

But what is also does is add data like delta-T, dew-point, Global Forecast System (GFS) 0-7 and 7-14 day, Nino 3.4 index, relative humidity, UV index and frost risk.

A ‘Silver Subscription’ of $2.99 a year adds a few handy extras, such as advanced push notifications (frost risk, humidity, rain and more), 28-day rain forecasts, 12-month district forecasts, a 3-month observation history, extra layers on radars and lightning information on the national radar. It also gets rid of the advertisements which appear on the free version.

Type: Weather

Price: Free

The Yield is another weather app but presents all its data from the grower’s perspective – including a 7-day evapotranspiration forecast.

Invaluable for irrigation scheduling, it’s a well-designed and good-looking iOS and Google app that presents the most important information for growers on the first screen – total rainfall since 9am, today’s evapotranspiration and a clear, central icon showing today’s water deficit.

Swiping up reveals a screen showing wind direction and speed, air temperature, today’s rainfall and relative humidity.

Swiping left shows the total water surplus/deficit, rainfall and evapotranspiration forecasts for the next seven days. If you swipe up, you get detailed charts showing: a daily breakdown of the water deficit/surplus; rainfall probability for 48 hours or seven days; wind speed for 48 hours or seven days; and the following week’s air temperatures and relative humidity.

Swiping right from the home screen shows the past seven days’ total water deficit, rainfall and evapotranspiration, and below that is a bar graph for the past week’s water deficit/surplus.

You can select and save multiple farm locations, and store past locations.

It’s a simple and well thought-out app – even to the point of using white text against a black screen for better readability especially when directly under the sun.

Type: Business

Price: Free with Trapview package or rental (Available on iOS and Android)

The Trapview app is part of a complete insect monitoring system also comprising pheromone traps and cloud-based processing.

The traps capture images of lured pests which are then analysed, and any recognised insects are automatically marked.

The traps cover one to five hectares, are energy independent and weather-resistant, and can be used in any area with access to a mobile network. They have GPS on board and can be extended to act as basic weather stations.

The app lets you see your traps and their current pest status on a map and uses a timeline to see that station’s sticky-plate pictures (taken at least once a day) and study the development of the pest population. The images are high resolution so you can zoom in for a clearer look.

You can also manage the operating parameters of each trap.

Type: Utilities

Price: $2.99 iOS; $2.69 Android

It’s worth having a spirit level on your smartphone for those times around the farm when you need to level something but don’t have the right tools on you.

There are literally dozens of spirit-level apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play, but iHandy Carpenter takes things one step further by adding a plumb bob, a surface level, a protractor and a ruler to the kit.

It was one of the first of its kind, and we’ve been using it for years.

The most important thing is to calibrate the app by using professional tools to align a surface and then using that surface to zero the virtual tools.

All the tools are accurate – except the ruler. For some reason, on our iPhone 8 Plus, 1cm appears more like 1.2cm.

Did you know? There’s actually a free surface level functionality on the iPhone. Open the Compass app and swipe left – you’ll see a screen with an inclinometer consisting of two circles. Place your phone on a surface and the circles will move around and give you a degree offset reading. If the surface is level, the screen will turn green.

Type: Education

Price: Free

Drones are becoming indispensable in agriculture, with its utilisation ranging from monitoring crop health and tracking livestock to surveying farmland. And just for fun.

But the big question is: “Can I fly there?” Luckily, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has released an app of that name.

Available on iOS and Android, with a web-based HTML5 version, the ‘Can I Fly There?’ drone safety app “reflects the standard operating conditions for those flying their drone recreationally or commercially (under the excluded category of commercial operations) and is a valuable educational and situational awareness tool for drone flyers,” CASA says.

Developed in conjunction with Drone Complier with data sourced from Airservices Australia, the app downloads Airspace Zone information the first time you use it – it took about a minute for us over the 4G network – then simply assesses your location on a map.

It will tell you if you can fly without restrictions, with some restrictions (such as launching a drone of over 100kg within 5.5km of an aerodrome or helicopter landing site) or not at all.

You can view the maps with or without a satellite overlay, and also see info on wind direction and speed, as well as temperature. There’s also a handy flight log function to keep track of your drone flying activities.

Type: Utilities

Price: Free (Available on iOS)

While drones are increasingly being used for serious elevation mapping, this app helps for when you just need a quick, simple and free elevation reading.

This app lets you see the height above sea level of any location on Earth. You can find your current elevation or the altitude of any other point by either moving around on the map (with a satellite overlay option), entering the GPS co-ordinates or searching for a location. Although, we found the latter to be a bit hit-and-miss.

The most useful feature is the ability to drop two pins on the map and see the elevation profile between them.

Elevation uses the Google Maps Elevation API, which means any height above sea level or depth on the ocean floor is covered. In the event that your location is not covered, the service will interpolate and return an average value based on the four nearest locations.

There are ads, but these are confined to a bar across the top of the screen, or the occasional screen takeover.

Type: Utilities

Price: Free

The CSIRO’s new Graincast app helps you forecast soil moisture and yield for the grain crop planted in your paddock, making for easier crop and paddock management in near-real-time.

You just need to input three pieces of information – the paddock you want analysed, the crop grown last season and the crop you plan to grow or are growing in the current season.

The app uses daily rainfall, temperature and solar radiation data from the Bureau of Meteorology at 5km resolution, as well as soil data from the Australian Soil and Landscape Grid.

The soil water status and grain yield forecasts are then calculated by the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator, APSIM, which simulates the biophysical process in farming systems. The APSIM modules include a diverse range of crops and pastures, as well as soil processes including water balance and nitrogen transformations.

Not only is this indispensable for growers, but it also allows advisors, bulk handlers, marketers, commodity forecasters and insurers to forecast grain production at regional and national levels.

The app is currently in the pre-release Beta stage. To try it out at this stage, you will need to send your paddock locations and what crops you grew last season by email to the CSIRO at graincast@csiro.au.

Type: Weather

Price: Free

CliMate is not just another weather app. Developed as part of the Commonwealth’s Managing Climate Variability R&D program, it helps farmers better manage their businesses by making sense of past climate statistics and forecasts.

It gives you access to the past 60 years of daily rainfall, temperature and radiation data for your location; seasonal forecasts based on current ENSO conditions; heat sums, soil water and soil nitrate accumulation estimations.

To make things easier, though, the app uses an interface where you receive information by asking simple questions. For example: How’s the rainfall progressing at Bushy Park starting six months ago and looking forward three months? (Answer: Rainfall at the 54th percentile at 272mm.)

But it goes way deeper than that. Among the many other questions you can ask are:

You need to set up an account before you can use the app, which is available for iOS and Android. There’s also a web-based version.

Type: Education

Price: Free

We all know the damage feral animals can cause to our environment and livelihoods – feral foxes alone took a $28 million bite out of Australia's agricultural sector in 2017 – so it’s worth doing anything we can to alleviate the problem.

You can use the FeralScan Pest Mapping app to record the location of pests you come across, detail the damage they’re causing and outline the actions you’ve taken against them.

The information is then added to the database at www.feralscan.org.au and used to monitor populations and help to coordinate pest control programs.

Available on Google Play and the iOS App Store, the app is very easy to use as it takes you through a step-by-step reporting process.

Currently, though the app, you can report mice, wild dogs, rabbits, feral cats, foxes, fish, pigs and toads. The ability to report camels, mynas and goats is coming soon to the app, but is already available on the website.

Type: Education

Price: $3.99 iOS; $2.99 Android

This indispensable app lets you look up diseases and syndromes in cattle, sheep and goats; find out ways to treat them and learn how to prevent reoccurrence.

It was developed by Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) and the Australian Livestock Export Corporation (LiveCorp), and was adapted from The Veterinary Handbook for the Livestock Export Industry published in 2012.

Aimed at veterinarians, animal health professionals, livestock producers, livestock handlers and veterinary and agricultural students, the Veterinary Handbook app is incredibly simple to use but highly detailed and well-written.

Once you arrive at a condition by browsing or searching, a menu bar appears at the foot of the screen with tabs for Details, Diagnosis, Treatment, Prevention and Syndromes.

You do, however, need to know your diseases; it would be handy to be able to arrive at a diagnosis by searching for symptoms.

The app operates offline, making access possible in the field at any time.