SMARTPHONE technology is changing the way farmers manage their enterprises.
After too many washed and lost notebooks, southern NSW farmer Jock Graham led a small group of farmers in the Cootamundra region to found the company, Farm Apps Pty Ltd, and with the help of technical developer, William Harrington, Richmond, Queensland, the app F-Track Live was born.
While there are some apps doing similar things on the market, the F-Track Live on-the-go farm management app has been developed by farmers, for farmers.
Starting out with his own experience, Mr Graham, the managing director of Farm Apps, said this app was unique because it allowed multiple users to record and access all of their farm information live, wherever they wanted, even when not in mobile service.
Released on the itunes store in mid-December the app has been in development since May 2011 after Mr Graham couldn’t find an app suitable for what his family farming operation needed.
Farming with his brother and father, Mr Graham found they would all have different things recorded in their notebooks and they never got them completely collaborated.
"The main idea behind F-Track Live was to release an app to replace the paper stock book that can be found in every farmer’s top pocket," he said.
"The frustration of multiple stock and cropping books, input by different users and out-of-date information were the key reasons to move to one live up-to-date recording system.
"It is a way to better our system and to make it more efficient."
Mr Graham said if he could get his father Jim to use it, anybody could.
F-Track Live is an easy to use app that tracks mob livestock movements, events and treatments, as well as cropping details, including what variety was in what paddock, sowing rates and treatments.
Designed for moderate to larger scale farms that have a few employees or managers and are spread across larger distances, the nominated users can collate their information wherever they are.
Other features include a silo manager function that records on-farm storage, a fuel manager that records fuel consumption and storage, daily commodity prices and integration with U-see tank monitoring equipment.
"You can also add a task, so say if you are driving and see a fence needs fixing but don’t have the time then, you add it into the app and everyone can then see it and you won’t forget about it," Mr Graham said.
So it was suited to every farmer, information could be accessed and entered when your mobile was out of service, and it got updated when back in mobile service again, while it also had a web-based interface which could be used from the home computer.
The app is free to download and comes with a 30-day trial period after which it is available via subscription.
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