July 2024 - 6

AGTECH
Talking Tech
New app innovations aid growers
BY KEITH LORIA
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
F
arming has forever been
changed by technology, with
new innovations helping
growers of fruit, vegetables and tree
nuts improve things such as pest
management, disease monitoring
and data collecting.
One of the biggest help to growers
these days are mobile apps, which
can help farmers achieve optimized
irrigation, targeted fertilization and
enhanced orchard monitoring. With
the use of a phone, growers can
uncover a host of information and
save themselves time and money
in the process.
AgProz
AgProz offers software and
mobile solutions that provide
accurate and responsive crop
acreage data, reliable marketing
resources and analytics that help
growers of all segments.
" We're more tied to vendors
and companies who are trying to
find growers, " said John Krum,
founder and CEO of AgProz.
Krum started the company with
the idea of overlaying agriculture
data on a map, similar to Zillow for
real estate.
" With AgProz, what you're able
to do is from a map see how many
acres a grower has, what kind of
crops are farmed, as well as a name
and contact info, " Krum said. " Once I
was able to pull out this information,
I was no longer going in blind about
what growers I could get in front of
and help. It empowers companies
6 | JULY 2024
like John Deere and others. It keeps
the right people in front of the right
growers. "
The core product is the app, and
now the data is being leveraged
more from a marketing lens as a
workforce tool.
" You can track certain things inside
the app and navigating the workflow
before doing follow-ups, " Krum said.
Doktar
Regardless of the crop focus -
tree fruits, nuts, vegetables -
Netherlands-based Doktar's mobile
app solutions help farmers make
decisions on real-time data for
precision farming and smart ag.
IoTrack is a mobile application
that enables the management of
the company's Filiz Agricultural
Sensor Station and PestTrap
Digital Pest Tracking Station from
a single platform.
" Users can track their data flow
and receive instant notifications
from IoT-enabled devices, allowing
them to make informed decisions
and enhance efficiency, " said Tanzer
Bilgen, CEO for Doktar.
Meanwhile, PestTrap is an IoT
pest-tracking station that utilizes
machine learning to accurately
identify and count pests in realtime.
It is suitable for use in fields,
orchards, greenhouses, warehouses
and forests.
" With sticky paper and an
integrated camera, PestTrap
captures daily images and accurately
identifies pest types, " Bilgen said.
" Integrated with the IoTrack mobile
application, PestTrap enables
effortless remote tracking and sends
notifications when pest levels reach a
risk threshold. "
Users of PestTrap receive highresolution
images with its 5MP
camera and can adjust the image
frequency and timing options for
more precise monitoring.
" They can view pest species
distribution and 48-hour spraying
suitability assessments to take
timely actions that reduce the
economic impact of pests and
optimize yields, " Bilgen said.
" PestTrap's machine learning
algorithm recognizes region-specific
pests, tracks their developmental
cycle and learns to identify new
pests accurately within two weeks. "
Both IoTrack and Orbit, an app
that helps farmers monitor the
health and development of their
crops and identify underdeveloped,
water-stressed or over-irrigated
areas, enable farmers to view all
data on their homepage and spot
problems immediately.
" Overall, IoTrack helps implement
practices for precision agriculture
by instantly controlling irrigation
problems, disease risks, microclimate
weather conditions, calculating
advanced agricultural metrics, and
potential pest infestations, " Bilgen
said. The app also helps track the
timing of irrigation, spraying, and
phenological stage changes in the
field by recording them on time.
" Health, inspection and water
stress maps are crucial, " Bilgen
said. " With Orbit, you can monitor
the weather hourly with the live
precipitation and storm tracking
feature and take timely precautions
with frost risk and fungal disease
risk notifications. "
July 2024

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