by Ben Nuelle
DES MOINES – A few years ago three college students found a way to use an I-pad to help identify weeds and other crop issues. That simple technology integration has now transitioned into a complete crop scouting program.
Stuart McCulloh along with two other Iowa State University students founded ScoutPro. He says it started with an I-pad and after five years there business is now a complete crop scouting program.
?Anyone who is looking to scout on an agronomist level on the retail side of things or growers who do their own scouting will have access to download our app and start scouting out in the field,? McCulloh says.
He says they also built a website as a management piece.
?Not just in field observations but capturing that scouting data. Making it very useful now and then years down the road especially if we look at crop planting options,? McCulloh says.
McCulloh says the idea came in the fall of 2010 while interning.
?We were walking through the field with stacks of manuals trying to write triplicate copies and thought there has to be a better way to condense this and make this a useful tool. Really what it came to as well, is that it?s not just a good tool for ID but the fact any one of us could create a scouting report on the say day, at the say time or in succession but it?s in the same format,? McCulloh says.
He says they?ve been working since 2012 with retailers from North Dakota to eastern Ohio.
