They create an application to optimize the work of farmers

Scientists have created a new application for smartphones and tablets that allows farmers to identify the sustainable soil and water management practices that best suit their conditions, making a preliminary assessment of the effectiveness and difficulty of their implementation. This application is now available on Google Play for free and in three languages: Spanish, English and Chinese.

The development of this application has been led by the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) in Spain, in whose digital repository it is also available.

This tool has been developed in the context of the project “Soil Hydrology research platform underpinning innovation to manage water scarcity in European and Chinese cropping systems”, a Horizon 2020 initiative between the European Union and China.

José Alfonso Gómez Calero, a researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (IAS), dependent on the CSIC, has been the coordinator of this project, whose central element is the development of strategies to deal with water scarcity in different agricultural systems, protecting the at the same time the soil resource and reinforcing cooperation between Europe and China on these issues.

The researchers responsible for the development of this app affirm that it will be very useful because, according to Gómez Calero, “it is a simple gateway to good practices for sustainable soil and water management in agriculture, designed so that any farmer or person from inside or outside the sector without prior knowledge can identify the different practices available and how their viability and effectiveness are determined by the particular conditions of a farm”.

The new application for smartphones and tablets allows farmers to identify the sustainable soil and water management practices that best suit their conditions. (Illustration: Amazings/NCYT)

Gómez Calero also points out that the application “comes backed by a guide to good management practices prepared within the project that the user can download for free, in Spanish, English and Chinese, to expand their knowledge. Both, the app and the guide, culminate the effort to standardize terminology and concepts between different languages ​​and technical traditions, being one of the few tools of its kind that cover three of the most widely spoken languages ​​in the world.” (Source: CSIC)