Sask. farmers create one-of-a-kind app to grade canola

Two Saskatchewan farmers have developed an app to efficiently grade canola.

Gord and Pat Keller, a father and son farming duo from Nut Mountain, Saskatchewan wanted a way to grade canola accurately while staying on the farm.

They developed an app called ‘ProGrade,’ which is expected to roll out sometime within the next week.

“I woke up in the middle of the night thinking, well, we use our phone for everything, why don’t we build a program on our phones to grade our canola,” said Gord Keller.

The Keller’s have been working on this program since November, saying this endeavour of theirs has been completely self-funded.

“It’s cost us quite a bit of money,” Pat said. “We need to get this app deployed and then put the final touches on it. We are very excited.”

“We are just trying to take away some of that subjectiveness and provide more accuracy. I hope its another tool that farmers can use and rely on.”

The app relies on artificial intelligence and a database consisting of hundreds of thousands of pictures of seeds.

When using the app, farmers will need to start by taking photos of the seed samples they have.

Then the system will evaluate and cross-reference the samples with hundreds of thousands of other samples to evaluate the seed as yellow, green, heated, or damaged.

As the software continues to scan seeds, the software will continue to learn and evolve with the product.

Finally, there will then be a grade of the samples in question, as well as a more detailed breakdown of the samples.

“I don’t think there’s anything like this in the world. We have very big plans after we get this up and running,” Gord said. “Based on the research we have done, we haven’t seen anything like this.”