Website Resources for Free iOS and Android Apps for Extension Personnel

Our college (College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources) received a grant to purchase tablets for extension agents and extension specialists to help assist them in their work. The extension personnel were those who spend a majority of their time out in the field. As such, there was an anticipated need of the extension personnel wanting information about which agricultural/horticultural related apps were available. The objective was to create websites that listed free iOS and free Android agricultural/horticultural related apps for extension personnel. Finding agricultural/horticultural related apps was done in several ways. Apps were searched for on specific subjects in the Apple iTunes Store and the Google Play Store. I also did Internet searches for apps.  News aggregator apps, such as Zite, and RSS Feed apps, such as Feedly, were used to help find apps. I created two websites for iOS and Android apps using Google Sites. The apps were listed in a table having six columns—Name, Function, Description, Platform, Cost, and Developer. The apps were categorized by subject (Function)—botanical garden, crop information, crop protection, education, farm management, flowers, food, food safety, gardening, GIS (geographical information system), fruits, harvest, invasive species, news, pests, plant ID (identification), planting, plant nutrition, plant selection, production cost, social media, soil, trees, turfgrass, varieties, water, and weeds. The Description field gave a brief explanation of what the app does. The Platform field contained either iOS or Android. The Cost field was free. The creator of the app was put in the Developer field. The two websites, one for iOS apps and one for Android apps, were called "Horticulture Applications (Apps) for iOS Mobile Devices" and "Horticulture Applications (Apps) for Android Mobile Devices". Each listed about 200 free apps. The two websites of free agricultural/horticultural apps provide a starting point and resource for extension personnel to find relevant apps.