FARMERS are being given the opportunity to instantaneously determine nutrient levels and receive fertiliser recommendations without leaving the paddock, using a new phone app called Croptune.
The Croptune app, developed by global fertiliser supplier Haifa Group, can determine a crop's nutritional status, instantly detect deficiencies and provide recommendations for fertilisation, all from a simple photo taken on a smartphone.
Croptune agronomy manager Eldad Sokolowski said the app was both a time efficient and cost effective alternative to other existing technologies, given the instant and accessible nature of it.
Mr Sokolowski said the app would also help to ease the burden of high input costs for farmers struggling with plant nutrient deficiency in their crops.
"The great thing about it is that it gives you the actual value of the percentage immediately, it's not something that you measure and then you have to wait to get the results a few days or weeks later if you send it to the lab," he said.
"You can take a photo and a few seconds later get the results and analysis, and you also get a recommendation for fertiliser.
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"The biggest difference is that you don't have to buy equipment in order to make the measurement, you use your mobile phone camera.
"There's some applications on the market that take your photo and compare it to other photos that they have in their data base, but what we do with our app is actually take each photo and analyse it in the cloud, so it's an actual analysis of the specific photo group of photos that you're taking.
"That's a big difference."
Mr Sokolowski said the app was able to be used on field, orchard and vegetable crops, and was currently being used on 18 different crops, including wheat, cotton, mangoes and bananas.
"I think it is important to see that each crop is calibrated individually," he said.
"It takes a full season to calibrate each each crop and this is done according to a lab analysis that we do with a certified lab, and once this is done, and then we release the new crop."
Kureen Farming farm manager Helen Bensilum and Haifa Australia agronomist Peter Anderson trialled the app on some avocados Evomac, Kairi, last week and were looking forward to seeing the results.
"The app is certainly interesting and exciting because you can have it on a mobile phone platform, rather than having to have another handheld device," Ms Bensilum said.
"So, it's exciting to see it moving ahead, and now for us, it's about working out how it stacks up against traditional sampling methods.
"We took some samples on two different varieties of avocados and then eventually Peter will come and take some leaf samples and we'll compare to verify the accuracy of the readings."
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