Smart Monitoring App for Crop Management

Abstract

Many agricultural academic programs still depend on manual recordkeeping, paper-based calendars, and spreadsheets to manage farm activities and crop-related tasks. Because of this, records can become unorganized, reports may be delayed, and monitoring agricultural activities becomes more difficult for students. These challenges can affect learning efficiency and proper farm management practices. To address these concerns, a Mobile-Based Crop Management Application was designed and developed for agronomy students at Mindanao State University – Sultan Naga Dimaporo (MSU-SND). The application offers a more organized and convenient way of handling agricultural activities through features such as a planting calendar, crop care guides, plant disease identification assistance, crop monitoring, and automated reminders. The development of the system followed the Spiral Model under the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC), allowing continuous improvement through iterative development, prototyping, and risk analysis. Mobile development tools were used in building the application, while its evaluation involved adapted questionnaires answered by selected agronomy students and instructors through purposive sampling. Weighted mean was used to analyze the gathered data and measure the system’s usability, functionality, and overall performance. The evaluation showed that users were highly satisfied with the application in terms of usefulness, ease of use, functionality, and overall performance. The use of mobile technology in agricultural education also helped improve record accuracy, task management, and practical learning experiences, while providing students with a more organized and accessible digital tool for agricultural activities.