‘APP’-RICULTURE CALS experts develop mobile apps to bring science to farmers anytime, anywhere BY JIM MASSEY
M
ike Cerny has been farming long enough to have a reliable intuition when it comes to decisions about applying chemical protection to his crops. So it came as a surprise to the Wisconsin farmer when he downloaded a smartphone app — developed by UW–Madison field crops pathologist Damon Smith — and it told him he should hold off on spraying a fungicide to prevent an infestation of white mold on his soybean plants. “I thought the conditions were favorable for the development of white mold,” Cerny says of the disease that can drastically reduce soybean yields. “But when I looked at Damon’s Sporecaster app, it said there was no need to spray. By not applying, it saved me more than $10,000.” Smith is one of a growing number of experts at CALS who are developing mobile apps as a way to get applied research into the hands of farmers quickly and efficiently — and in an easy-to-use form. An app (short for software application) is a computer program, accessible through a smartphone or other mobile device, that is designed to perform a specific function for the user. With a few clicks of a button, certain apps can help farmers determine whether they should replant a crop, calculate how much fertilizer they should use, or decide if they should change what they are feeding their cows. Sporecaster in particular helps farmers determine if and when they should apply fungicide during their soybean crop’s flowering stage — when it’s most susceptible to an influx of white mold fungus spores. The program accesses GPS weather data, does some
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mathematical analysis, and spits out a probability of risk for infection by the white mold fungus that day. “It helps farmers determine the best time to apply [fungicide] based on the highest risk,” says Smith, an associate professor in the Department of Plant Pathology. “It has saved folks some money. During the 2018 season, we had about 250 active users a day.” Apps have been developed in several UW–Madison departments to help disseminate new knowledge beyond campus borders. While CALS researchers continue to publish their research in peer-reviewed journals, present findings at conferences, and share results with the public in many ways, they have come to the logical conclusion that sometimes the best way to get information to users is through mobile devices. “If [the apps] are handy and useful, they spread like wildfire, and everybody uses them,” says Eric Birschbach, a crop consultant with Ag Site Crop Consulting in Verona, Wisconsin. Several apps developed at CALS have certainly taken off. This new generation of tools for agricultural education is helping the college fulfill its mission of sharing knowledge with Wisconsin farmers and beyond.
BETTER CROP MANAGEMENT ON THE GO The concept of apps as a research delivery method was pretty new when Carrie Laboski, a professor in the Department of Soil Science, developed her first one in 2012. Her Corn N Rate Calculator was the first university-based agronomic app introduced to the Apple iTunes Store.
