A New Nitrogen Index Smart Phone Application: Using Portable Technology for Smart Agricultural Management.

A new study released in September 2011 by the USDA found that best management practices (BMPs) for nitrogen in terms of application rate, time, and method, are done for only about a third of U.S. cropland (http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR127/). Without BMPs, the potential for nitrogen losses and negative environmental impacts such as contaminated groundwater increases (e.g., http://groundwaternitrate.ucdavis.edu/). It is important to apply BMPs to reduce nitrogen losses, and the USDA recently published an article about new nitrogen tools that can help their users assess the effects of BMPs for a given field (http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/sep11/nitrogen0911.htm). One of such tool is the new Nitrogen Index, which was just revised and released in 2012 for laptop and desktop computers (ars.usda.gov/npa/spnr/nitrogentools). Also released in 2012 was the first nitrogen loss risk assessment tool for mobile phones (the Nitrogen Index smart phone application, or “app”). The Nitrogen Index application was developed for Android™ devices and can be downloaded for free at the Google Play™ website (https://play.google.com) using the search term, ‘Nitrogen Index’. This new portable technology can be used to conduct a quick assessment of the risk of N losses via leaching and surface and atmospheric pathways for a given field.  In addition, the output from the Nitrogen Index can be emailed directly from the phone to another recipient (e.g., farmer, consultant, or even the user’s laboratory or office) for further analysis of the data. This is only the beginning of advances in portable agricultural technology, which represent the next frontier for technology transfer for a smart agriculture.