March 29, 2024

ScoutPro among growing agriculture apps

Tablets and apps have changed the education and field, and it looks like agriculture is joining the trend. ScoutPro has developed several applications that allow growers to identify pests on both corn and soybean plants.

The company has four apps out currently, all available in the Apple App Store, and they all use photo recognition technology.   ScoutPro CEO Michael Koenig is a former crop scout and created the company originally as a school project at Iowa State University.

“Photo recognition software is currently being used for facial recognition, and we thought that this technology would be perfect for crop scouting,” Koenig said to Iowa Soybean Review in the January issue.

“Not all people scouting are professionally trained, so we wanted to create an application that would benefit the grower and the crop consultants. Understanding picture recognition could accomplish this,” he continued.

Iowa Soybean App was the first app launched and was released last December. ScoutPro describes the app more in-depth on its website.

• Easily accessible and simple to use app, designed for the agricultural production industry for use on iPhone.

• Step through identification process helps users narrow down pest by identifying attributes.

• Provides multiple, high quality photos of identified pests along with pest’s background, life cycle and threshold information.

• Ability to generate field specific scouting reports through provided data entry fields including weather/precipitation information, plant staging, pest pressure, etc.

• Allows user to upload images to scouting report for better record keeping.

• Customizable data fields allow user to add comments and/or directives for the scouted field.

• Field mapping capabilities are included to allow users to map field, via GPS coordinates for accuracy in reporting.

• Identified pest are automatically recorded on field map via GPS coordinates to help identify concentrated problem areas needing immediate attention.

• Scouting reports can be saved, stored and/or emailed to be shared or archived for reference in future crop years.

The other apps they provide are ScoutPro Soybean, ScoutPro Soybean Consultant, ScoutPro Corn, ScoutPro Corn Consultant and there are plans for both a cotton and a wheat app in the future.

“Farmers don’t need another task to slow them down and ScoutPro will provide farmers with a more organized scouting record that requires less of their time,” Koenig said. “I’m not only dreaming big things for this company but also praying for big things for this company. I’m looking forward to what’s in store for the future.”