By Tyler Williams
AgriTools is a free mobile app designed to provide location-specific climate and weather information to agricultural producers.
A new app developed by Nebraska Extension can help producers utilize climate and weather data to make management decisions in Nebraska. AgriTools is a free mobile app designed to provide location-specific climate and weather information to agricultural producers.
AgriTools features weather data from the National Weather Service, High Plains Regional Climate Center, Nebraska State Climate Office and Nebraska Mesonet weather stations located throughout the state. Forecasts and recent data are provided for any location selected on the map. Data includes yesterday’s temperature, wind, soil moisture, soil temperature, evapotranspiration, solar radiation, growing degree days (GDD) and seasonal GDD accumulation.
“Climate and weather has, and will always have an impact on agriculture,” said Tyler Williams, Nebraska Extension educator focused on cropping systems and climate resiliency. “AgriTools arms producers with the climate and weater information they need to make informed decisions.”
Access to University of Nebraska-developed mobile agriculture apps and mobile friendly web pages is a feature of AgriTools. Apps such as the irrigation pumping efficiency calculator, irrigation cost calculator, pesticide record keeping can now be easily located through AgriTools.
Another feature of AgriTools is accessibility to decision-aid tools using climate and weather variables. The quick crop water use calculator uses crop type, crop stage and the interpolated evapotranspiration for the location. This provides easy access to estimated crop water use from the field on a mobile device. Additional tools are expected to be developed in the future.
AgriTools is currently available on the iPhone only.