Monsanto Canada’s DeKalb seed arm has rolled out a new application for use by corn and soybean growers on a “wide variety” of BlackBerry devices, to work out recommendations for planting populations.
A farmer can go online to download the app to a BlackBerry, after which he or she would “follow a few simple steps and the app will provide them with a recommended planting population for their crop,” the company said in a release Wednesday.
Read Also
Research focuses on drought tolerant alfalfa
Exotic alfalfa varieties that produce white, blue, cream and yellow flowers are being looked at by plant breeders to improve the crop’s drought tolerance.
The app determines optimum planting population for a specific DeKalb variety based on row width, soil type and maturity zone.
Farmers can then use the information to calibrate an air seeder, seed drill or planter based on the variety’s seed size.
“From both ease of use and agronomic perspectives, the DeKalb Plant Population Calculator App is very intuitive,” said Todd Woodhouse, DeKalb’s agronomist at Elora, Ont., in the release.
App users, he said, are prompted to select from a “pre-populated” list of information at most steps in the process.
Users select their soil type and row width along with “crop-specific variables” as they work their way through the steps to come up with a specific planting recommendation for their corn or soybean crops, the company said.
“It’s all laid out in simple, sequential steps that make it very easy for the user to follow and complete,” Woodhouse said in the release.
The DeKalb app requires a farmer’s BlackBerry to be running on Operating System (OS) 4.2 or greater.
