New App To Help Growers Protect Blueberry Crops
December 11, 2020 Can a smartphone be used to protect your farm’s blueberry crops? Yes, there is an app for that – now. University of Florida blueberry researchers have worked with developers to create the UF/IFAS Blueberry Growers Guide mobile app in effort to help the state’s growers identify and manage disease and insect injuries from anywhere.
Patricio Muñoz, the UF/IFAS blueberry breeder and an Assistant Professor of horticultural sciences, came up with the vision for and supervised the development of the newly released technology.
“Previously, the only blueberry scouting guide available was a paper guide for northern highbush blueberries, covering diseases and insects typically seen in more northern states,” says Doug Phillips, UF/IFAS Blueberry Extension Coordinator.
Phillips led the project. He prepared the content and layout for the guide in collaboration with several other UF/IFAS scientists.
The guide, which will ultimately be divided into multiple modules, is designed to help blueberry growers with various production issues on southern highbush blueberries. Currently, the app serves as a blueberry scouting guide to help farmers scout for diseases, insect pests, nutrient deficiencies, and other damage, according to Phillips.
Resources in the guide include a diagnostic key, descriptions of symptoms, disease/insect life cycles, recommended management practices, an image gallery, and links to UF/IFAS blueberry Extension publications. Users can access this information by using the diagnostic key to help identify symptom or injury causes and the image gallery to compare pictures of symptoms to observed symptoms.
They also can use a reference listing of diseases, insect injuries, nutrient deficiencies, and other symptoms or injuries.
More functions will be added in the near future, Phillips says.
The new UF/IFAS app is available for both iOS and Android operating systems at the Apple Store and the Google Play Store. Just type in “UF/IFAS Blueberry Growers Guide” to find it.
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