BRIAN PAIGE
RECEIVES
BEACON
AWARD with These Powerful Plant ID Apps
BRIAN PAIGE
Boost
RECEIVES
Your Crews
BEACON
’ Plant Knowledge
AWARD with These Powerful Plant ID Apps
saved automatically to the MyPlants section and be identified when the connection is back . One of the cons is the app will always provide an answer and when it is wrong , it can be extremely incorrect .
There is a week-long free trial for the app , but you have to make sure to cancel the subscription afterward if this isn ’ t the app for your team . It ’ s possible to sustain a free account , but users will have to log in to an account and watch commercials to earn more free credits .
The paid version of the app is $ 39.99 for a year-long subscription .
If you ’ re opting to hire your employees based on their attitude and work ethic , rather than a particular set of skills , chances are not all of them have an encyclopedic knowledge of all the plants they may encounter out in the field .
While you should work to increase their recognition of different plant species through training , a tool you can use to augment their expertise is plant identification apps . There are a number of these available so we ’ ve outlined a handful of the options as well as their pros and cons , and if there is a free versus paid tier .
PictureThis With this app , users can snap a picture and not only receive an ID put also plant disease diagnosis and intelligent care suggestions . PictureThis says it has 12,000 + plants , flowers , succulents and trees in their database .
According to Michigan State University , which has been evaluating plant identification apps since 2018 , PictureThis has been the top performing app out of the ones they reviewed . Students found in 2023 that this app was correct 73 % of the time and if the partial ratings ( 16 %) are added to the correct ratings , the app was helpful 89 % across all plant categories .
PictureThis does require a network connection . When offline , photos taken with the app will be
PlantNet PlantNet allows you to take a picture of a photo and then you are provided with a list of plants , classified by the percentage of certainty .
It is straightforward and is based on image recognition and member involvement . It provides near-instantaneous results . PlantNet claims its database contains 46,050 plant species .
The mobile version of PlantNet allows you to perform plant observations in the field , possibly geolocated ( if your GPS is activated and you share your location with the app ) without a mobile connection .
The only con for this app is it is particular about the type of pictures it needs to properly identify a plant , so your crews might get frustrated with that aspect .
This app is completely free and has no ad tier .
LeafSnap LeafSnap boasts of a database of more than 32,000 plant taxons from all over the world . The app features a basic plant identifier and an Advanced Identify function . The Advanced Identify function can identify a plant from a photo of the whole plant , from a photo of its flower or from its leaf only .
The app also provides a diagnostic feature that ( continued on page 22 )
MALP Newsline | Fall 2024 17