A Mobile App for Supporting Citrus Fruit Growers in Greece

Abstract

Crop management is a challenging and time-consuming task that involves many different data and farming activities. Data regarding the plots, the crop, and seasonal farming activities, are important for improving crop management for different cultivations. Specifically, citrus fruits are significant cultivations for Greece. Citrus cultivation is mainly practiced in small-sized, dispersed, family-owned plots and requires cumulative knowledge and experience regarding various activities. Such knowledge has to be easily registered and be made accessible ubiquitously, and should cover various activities for each plot, such as plowing, planting, pruning, spraying, irrigating, harvesting, and the purchase of agricultural supplies. Usually, farmers keep an archive of farming activities on paper, in a non-structured form, from which it is difficult and time consuming to retrieve and use information. The objective of this article is the deployment of a mobile app for citrus management that supports the recording and retrieving of farming data. The app design was based on the requirements of two hundred farmers and its implementation was based on the Android platform. The usability test evaluation shows that the app meets citrus farmers’ requirements. Limitations of this study include the small evaluation sample and the exclusive use of the Greek language. Future work focuses on the development of localized apps for specific crops, combined with other functionalities, such as location-based services, alerts, and cloud data storage, to help farmers with their specific needs in practice.