by Sam Bibby

Open-source software is a software product for which the code is freely available to the public to use or modify.

This is essentially the opposite of what we call proprietary software, which is privately owned and licensed. Open-source software, or OSS, is usually developed by a group of people who have a mutual interest in creating a software product that fits their specific needs and often avoids the high cost of similar pay-to-use products.

Many programs and software products we use are open source; for example, Android, the world’s most popular mobile operating system, is OSS. The web browser Firefox, the computer operating system Linux and the programing language Python are more examples of OSS used by millions of people today.

While OSS projects have been popular in the computer science world since the 1990s, there has been little interest in projects related to agriculture until quite recently. As more farmers have now grown up in the age of computers and software development, we are starting to see an increase in open-source projects related to agriculture.

Many of these projects aim to develop technology that doesn’t currently exist, avoids the high cost of existing proprietary technology, or fits a specific need not catered to by larger for-profit companies. Here’s a look at a few:

Related:Risk vs. reward: 3 farmers talk technology

Ag Open GPS. One of the most popular projects with tech-savvy farmers is Ag Open GPS, started by Brian Tischler from Alberta, Canada. The project aims to provide an inexpensive autosteer solution for farmers with all the functionality you might find in today’s branded products.

The software is completely free and only requires a generic GPS antenna, receiver and Windows tablet to run as a conventional lightbar with a coverage map. This setup will achieve pass-to-pass accuracy of less than 1.5 meters, although, in my personal experience, it is better than this in the Midwest.

Adding RTK corrections via NTRIP or a radio base station will allow for accuracy around 1 centimeter. Adding a circuit control board and a few other components allows for autosteer functionality with the same potential accuracy. Additional functions include section control, automatic implement lift and more in development.

Web ODM. Web ODM (Open Drone Map) is an OSS that makes combining individual drone images to form larger high-resolution orthomosaic images for analysis easy and available for anyone. Commercial options for the same process can cost more than $1,000 a year for a subscription.

Web ODM can analyze an image with plant health indicators such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Leaf Area Index and many more.

Related:Drone research offers mixed findings

Open weed locator. Open weed locator is a project started by doctoral student Guy Coleman to detect and spray individual weeds in a fallow field environment. All software and hardware design plans are freely available. In-crop weed detection is currently in development.

While many of these projects lack the customer support and user-friendliness of a commercial product, if you are a tech-savvy farmer, or have tech-savvy kids, the cost and functionality may be worth it. As a bonus, you won’t be stuck paying or waiting for service since you likely will be fixing problems yourself.

Bibby is the University of Wisconsin Extension regional crops educator for La Crosse, Vernon and Crawford counties. None of the products mentioned here have been evaluated and are not endorsed by UW-Madison.