The outmoded view of agriculture, as a pre-industrial technologically obscure field, is rapidly changing. Increasingly, farmers are making use of Apps as smartphones become more accessible. I have blogged about a number of applications and ways in which non-profits and other development organizations are helping farmers to purchase these phones. But there is a growing number of new applications.

Here are five FREE agricultural apps recently reviewed by Calder Justice of AGCO, a high-tech solutions firm for farmers.

• SoilWed – GPS based, real-time access to USDA-NRCS soil survey data, formatted for mobile devices. This application retrieves graphical summaries of soil types associated with the user’s current geographical location. Images are linked to detailed information on the named soils.
• PureSense: Allows user to access information from underground sensors that detect moisture levels near the roots of crops.
• Dupont Tankmix: Allows you to easily calculate the amount of product you will need to treat a specific field area, the amount of product you need to apply to a specific tank size, the amount of water you will need to treat a specific area or the amount of product you will need to get the desired volume to volume ratio.
• AGWired: The first agricultural media app for the iPhone. The app offers one-touch access to all the latest news and information in the agribusiness and agricultural marketing world posted on Agwired.com
• ArcGIS: ArcGIS is a great way to discover and use maps. You can query the map, search and find interesting information, measure distances and areas of interest and share maps with others.