- Author: Ryan Krason
For those that have attended our Water School meetings, the time is finally here! Our new self assessment app "Know Your H20 is now available on the iTunes Store for free! Right now there are only a self assessment for Tree Crops but we will be working in the near future to create sections for Greenhouses & Nurseries, Animal Agriculture, and Commercial Turf & Landscape. We'll let you know as those become available.
App Description
Water quality laws and regulations are putting a heavy burden on agriculture nationwide. Although Agriculture is not the only concern, runoff from agricultural properties can contain contaminant levels that exceed water quality standards. Runoff from agricultural operations can pick up and carry natural and man-made pollutants, including fertilizers, salts, pesticides and sediments to lakes, rivers, wetlands and beaches.
Certain growing practices can contribute to water quality problems, however, Best Management Practices (BMPs) can be utilized to minimize the impact of agriculture on water quality.
This Self-Assessment Application will help you assess your growing practices and their potential impact on water quality. It will also provide suggestions for Best Management Practices that can help to solve your water quality problems.
Download the App click here.
App Development by Touch This Media, LLC
![Icon-02 Icon-02](/blogs/blogcore/blogfiles/15102.jpg)
![Screen-shots Screen-shots](/blogs/blogcore/blogfiles/15978.jpg)
- Author: Patricia Brantley
As if gardening isn’t enough fun there are actually people out there that have made computer games for us to play too! I’ve been playing a couple that I thought you might be interested in trying yourself. You can download them to your desktop or laptop, I have them on my iPad, and they have Smartphone versions too. These review are my own opinion and do not reflect the views or policies of the UC System or Master Gardeners (even if I am an Aggie).
The first one and my personal favorite is called Gardenscapes. It’s put out by a company called Playrix. It is a no pressure game (unless you set it to timed mode). The story goes that you’ve inherited a mansion from your late uncle and want to rejuvenate the gardens to their once former glory. In order to do so, you must find things within the house to sell and earn enough money to upgrade the garden. You are given choices of what to buy, and there is pressure from the garden club to update it in order to become a member. The musical score in the garden is peaceful and relaxing and the butler that comes with the property keeps you on track. I opted to upgrade to the paid version for this one.
The second one is called GardenDash. Made by the same folks, Playfirst, that makes the now infamous DinerDash. This one is a lot of fun, but make sure you’ve had your dose of caffeine for the day! In this one, you play “Barbara” who has been told she needs to take a vacation and de-stress. To make a long story short, Barb begins a business and you have to plant the plants, water, prune, harvest and fill the customer’s orders. You earn money selling your produce and can buy things to fix up your garden or things to help Barbara get things done more effectively. I’ve only been playing the free version, but I have plans to shell out the 1.99 for the full version.
The last one I’ve been working at conquering is Garden Panic! This one you are in charge of a patch of strawberries and Sgt. Strawberry walks you through how to defend it by planting cornstalks that shoot kernels and tomatoes that through grenades. There are various attackers. Grubs, ants and caterpillars come at a regular rate and the more you shoot the more sun ray energy you get to power you up. The graphics on this one are really nice, but the print that you have to read to get the instructions is small and I wasn’t able to enlarge it on my iPad. It’s also a bit difficult to figure out, and even though you get more lives at the push of a button it’s probably not one I’ll be upgrading to the paid version.
So gardeners, treat yourself. Try one or try them all. It’s just fun to find out that gardening has hit the gaming world. Just look out for those bugs and worms.
![GardenDash Screenshot GardenDash Screenshot](/blogs/blogcore/blogfiles/10263.jpg)
![Gardenscapes Screenshot Gardenscapes Screenshot](/blogs/blogcore/blogfiles/10264.jpg)
- Author: Kris Lynn-Patterson
It's true. The iPad is being used for "mobile business intelligence" which expands on the "smart phone" technology to put site-specific mapping technologies in the hands of the grower. Recently my lab (Robert and James) used James' iPhone to find pomegranate orchards on a Google map AND digitize the boundaries AND export to our GIS software real GIS Shapefiles! Yippee!
Now, of course, he could do this IF he was in range of cell towers - he had AT&T which is not as good as Verizon - but almost all of the pomegranates were mapped in the field using an iPhone and a FREE app called iGIS... And iGIS is perfect for the iPad, as well - a bigger, easier to see, and with excellect GPS capabilities - for in-field data collection to be downloaded into an office GIS package for mapping and analysis.
So, where is all this leading? We believe to easier, more affordable GIS implementation for farm management. There are many new "apps" being developed for locational business management (which is agriculture personified!). The Android phones have free apps for GIS (iGIS is being developed for the Android platform) and there are many new tablets that are less-expensive than the iPad on the market - some that we think are just as good.
To get one professionals look at the importance of the new tablet GIS computing, here is an excerpt contained in a Newsletter from Rob Wood owner of scancontrol, inc.
"Business intelligence (BI) is now relevant at the farm gate, giving farming operations
managers quick, convenient, up-to-the-minute data to inform their decision
making. Users are no longer spectators in their interaction with business
intelligence - they are now directly connected to it.
There are several agriculture-specific applications for BI on the iPad:
- Crew and farm
managers can find out which tasks are scheduled, what tasks have been
completed and how much of a specific budget line item remains before a KPI
is compromised. As one vineyard manager put it: "I'd like to know
what options I have for achieving target quality goals before committing
resources to a specific task, or, how much gas do I have left in the
tank." - Managers can
monitor broader supply chain issues such as balancing product demand with
available supply chain raw materials. This involves estimating yields,
ensuring that quality is appropriate for each product line and that
resource commitment plans (generally a specification on recommended
farming practices) are adjusted accordingly to ensure that the system does
not "over deliver." - Users get a
richer experience. More than just a formatted view of a database table, BI
on the iPad offers fully interactive and "actionable"
intelligence. It makes it possible to see the information and quickly take
action based on the freshest data available, with self-service reporting
and analysis, and real-time continuous updates.
GIS Tips and Tricks from Rob Wood
More than a Map:
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be used to understand where problems
are in your crop and document the cause or symptoms of any deficiency.
NDVI images, derived from infrared data, can be loaded into an iPad and you can
literally "walk amongst the pixels" by taking advantage of the iPad's
GPS hardware. This capability significantly increases the value of the NDVI
image by allowing users to precisely locate high and low vigor zones depicted
by the image color variation. Field investigations can be pinpointed and the
impact of remediation can be assessed into subsequent seasons.
Besides, think of all the printing you'll be saving by not having to convert
the image into a paper map!
Ideas? Comments? Add to this Blog! Email Kris!
krislynn@uckac.edu
- Author: Bryon J. Noel
Do you notice anything new in the screen shot below? No? Yes? Maybe? This is like the game where you have to figure out what was changed in the picture. See anything? If your interested in your Blog stats I'm sure you may have noticed it. No? Not Yet? What? you want a clue? Ok, here's a clue....
Thin Green Line. Is that enough of a clue?
Ok. Ok. I'll jump to the point. We have added "Mobile Hits" to the Blog stats. This counts every single time someone with a mobile device views one of your Blog posts. Since adding the mobile Blogs we though it'd be nice to know how much traffic we get on mobile devices.
![Blog Stats Blog Stats](http://ucanr.org/blogs/wat/blogfiles/7745.png)
One question to ask is what is considered a mobile device. Well this is not up to us but it is up to how the device identifies itself. Typically mobile devices identify themselves with one of the words "mobile", "blackberry", "android", or "windows ce". This includes the iPhone, iPad, and most tablet devices.