This column is written by the UC Master Gardeners of Yolo County each month. It provides answers to selected questions recently asked by Yolo County gardeners.
Question: What phone-based apps are available to help identify native plants, domesticated and cultivated plants, plant diseases, and abiotic disorders of plants? And, are there apps to help identify insects I may find in my garden?
Answer: A number of high-quality mobile apps now use AI, image recognition, and crowd-sourced data to identify plants, diagnose diseases, and even identify abiotic disorders such as nutrient deficiencies, drought stress, and insects. None of the apps performs all of these functions. You will need to select the one appropriate for the task you want to complete, and, of course, you can download more than one. Some of these apps are free, some are subscription-based.
The ability of these apps to identify plants and give you a good idea of diseases, viruses, or abiotic disorders affecting your plants is pretty amazing. On the other hand, they do have limitations. The picture you take with your phone’s camera must be clear. They work best to identify plants that are blooming. To identify a plant from leaf shape and color alone can be fairly hit or miss. You may get an answer such as dicot or pine tree, which you probably already knew. Identification of disease or abiotic disorders can also be tricky, and you should use a diagnosis as only a beginning point, doing further research in science-based books or internet articles to confirm.
Native plant identification apps are especially good for identifying native flora, whether growing in the wild or your backyard.
- iNaturalist: One of the most powerful tools for native plant identification. It combines AI suggestions with expert community verification and has millions of observations globally.
- Pl@ntNet: A free, science-based app with a massive dataset (tens of thousands of species). It relies partly on user-submitted images, making it especially useful for regional flora. Unlike many other apps, it rates the likely accuracy of its identification.
- Seek by iNaturalist: A simplified version of iNaturalist that works well for quick field identification, but with less depth.
Broad-based apps also include common landscape plants and are widely recommended.
- PictureThis: One of the most accurate identification apps, capable of recognizing hundreds of thousands of species. It also includes disease diagnosis and treatment advice.
- Plantum: A comprehensive tool that identifies plants and diagnoses diseases, offering care guides and even botanist consultations.
- PlantSnap: Known for ease of use and strong identification accuracy. It also includes a social/community component and a large plant database. Plant disease, pests, and abiotic disorder diagnosis applications focus on plant health rather than identification.
- Plantix: Designed originally for agriculture, it excels at diagnosing plant diseases, nutrient deficiencies, and pest damage from photos.
- Plant Parent: Provides detailed care guidance and helps interpret symptoms (watering stress, light issues, etc.), which is useful for abiotic disorders.
- Blossom: Focused on houseplants, offering disease identification, care schedules, and diagnostics for common stress conditions.
Insect identification apps can help you identify insects in your garden, both pests and beneficials, and describe characteristics, life cycle, and behavior. These apps can be inaccurate. Taking a clear picture of an insect can be difficult, and many different species look alike. It may be best to get the opinion of an expert.
- iNaturalist and Seek, described above, will both identify insects. Others include:
- Picture Insect is focused specifically on insects (not plants or animals). It describes life cycle information, behavior, and whether the insect is harmful or beneficial.
- InsectAiSnap has a very large database. It provides fast AI-based identification with detailed species information, including spiders.
Identification apps are imperfect tools because both AI and app users are imperfect. In practice, many experienced users install two apps, one AI-heavy identifier such as PictureThis and one community/science-based tool (iNaturalist) to cross-check results. This combination provides the highest reliability, especially when distinguishing between closely related native and cultivated species, diagnosing subtle plant health issues, or identifying insects. A local nurseryman, websites such as Calscape, or the Bohart Entomology Museum are the best local experts for plant or insect identification.
Have a gardening question? Send it to jmbaumbach@ucanr.edu, with “Ask MGs” in the subject line. Include as much detail as possible and pictures if you have them.