Producers can take landscape and plot photos, record and organize data – all on their mobile device. Though it just entered the market, Beau Mathewson, a third-generation rancher near Potter, Nebraska, says it is a great management tool for any operation.
“I would recommend this app to any grassland manager,” Mathewson says. “It is a great way for the novice to start a rather comprehensive monitoring program, and even producers with extensive records will find value in it.”
After testing the app for one month, Mathewson found that Grass Snap is highly intuitive and easy to use. He believes it can be incorporated into any operation for little investment.
“I hope now that it is available to the public, people will use it just as any other tool in their monitoring toolbox,” Mathewson says.
The overlay setting on the app is Mathewson’s favorite feature, he says. It provides an outline of the previous photo so the producer can accurately align and take an approximate photo to the year before. This makes it easy to visualize any changes that occurred to the landscape, he says.
The home screen is organized into four buttons – add new transect, albums, maps and update existing. In the “add new transect section,” any new data is recorded. The actual data is stored in the albums and maps button. The album section lists all of the pasture or range recorded on the device. By clicking on a specific folder, the trend score, comments and pictures can be viewed. Each picture also provides the pasture name, coordinates, date and direction viewed. The pictures can be enlarged to compare and analyze.
Grass Snap can be found on iTunes or Google Play for free and is available for Apple and Android. 
