So I am going to approach a subject in this blog that is Not in my wheelhouse.  At the first of the year I was asked by a friend to speak on Ag Apps at the 2013 InfoAg meetings. His thought was, hey this guy teaches Precision Ag and uses a IPad, he must know apps. Well,  not so much.  From January to the day before the talk in July I spent a great deal of time scouring the App store and working, my wife described it as playing, on my IPad.  At info Ag I gave two talks, at the time of first talk on Tuesday I had 53 Free apps (1 paid), by the next morning and my second talk I had 60.
Since the meeting I have had numerous request for the slides and etc, so I thought this would be a good opportunity for a blog.  Since InfoAg (7.17.2013) I have picked up even more apps, the total is now 76.  However many of the new apps require registration.

On my IPad I have organized the apps into 8 basic folders:
ID Tools, Calculators, Seed, Sprayer/Chemical, Fertilizer, New/Weather/Markets, Scouting, Ag Apps  (apps I don’t know what to do with).

While I have 76 Apps I of course don’t use them all. What follows is basically my Editors Choice from each group. Please note I have not had the time to work with all 76 Apps. And I am by no means an expert in Apps or the use of them.
I do have a basic require of any App I use.  If I can not figure it out in 2 minutes its GONE.  An app should be intuitive, easy to use and have a purpose.  They only exception to the 2 minute rule is the Scouting Apps. Because of their complexity I allow them 5 minutes, then I am done.

ID Tools:

This Category holds the One and Only App I paid for, Plant Images, a library of Nutrient Deficiency photos.  I mean I am a Soil Fertility guy.
I regularly use Plant Images, ID Weeds, and the Pestbook as references.  ID weeds is a true ID tool as you can use attributes to ID your weed, while the other two are visual reference tools.

Calculators:

I personally use the two Nutrient Removal Apps the most, but after the latest update AG-PhDs Fert. Removal has become my favorite as it allows you to entire any yield level.
Harvest loss is also a handy App that lets you put $ to combine inefficiencies.

Seed:

I do not use these often as I only do plot work, but I can see there usefulness in a operation.

Sprayer/Chemical:

This group contains two of my first Ag Apps and most frequently used.
Being a fertilizer guy herbicides are not my forte however I use the often.
TankMixCalc and SpraySelect has been in my App arsenal from the beginning.
The nice item about many of the Sprayer Apps is the ability to save/store mixes or provide record keeping.

Fertilizer:

Now the Fertilizer Apps are right up my alley.  But the only ones I use are the Cost Calcs.  As far as fertilizer recommendations go you must remember they are quite regionally specific so the Wisconsin Corn N rate Calculator does me little to no good.

New/Weather/Markets:

This is the category that I have the most apps.  My first was Agriculture (DTN/PF), so I fall back to it often but I also like AgIndex and AgWeb. With the news/marketing ext apps the biggest key is find one that a) reports on topics of interest to you, they do differ and b) has a layout and design that is easy to use and enjoy.

Scouting

The Scouting tools are a bit different, most but not all require registration of some kind.  I like most that I have tried but each has their own high and low points.  The use of a scouting tool will be highly dependent upon uses, goals, and what companies you currently work with.  For example Field Notes 360 has some nice points, you can make notes on photos, but you have to be a Pioneer employee or customer to get full use, I like Scout (Connected Farm) note taking capability and the fact you can input GreenSeeker NDVI values.  I have the beta version of Sirrus but I can all ready tell you it is shaking out to be my favorite. Two wins for Sirrus, its method of creating and editing boundaries is top notch but what I like the most is its ability to set up a direct grid sampling.

Ag Apps:

This folder holds my Scientific Pub app the Web Soil Survey app, ArcGis app and the loan Ag game that snuck its way in with a official sounding name FarmGenius.

I don’t expect any app to change my life or yours, but it may make it easier.
The ID Tools, Calculators, Sprayer/Chem and Fertilizer apps are nice when I am in the field with a producer and just break out the IPad for easy demo/explanation.
There is a multitude of apps available and more being produced every day.  Just as everything else find what suites you regardless of others opinions.  When searching with an IPad remember to switch the search to include IPhone apps, there are some good ones out there that are IPhone only.
If you want to see my presentation from InfoAg, checkout their website www.infoag.org/program3 or go to the http://www.NPK.osktate.edu website and download the PDF of the slides under the Presentation tab.