Global gardening app built on Bluemix provides accurate instructions

Most gardeners have a general knowledge about how to grow vegetables: dig holes and drop in seeds. Add water. These instructions sound simple, because they are. In fact, they’re overly simplified and not always right.
What’s a kitchen gardener to do?
Phoning a friend or reading the instructions on the seed packet can help, but this guidance is not tailored to individual growers.
That’s where Ortocloud comes into play. This global gardening app helps kitchen gardeners know exactly what seeds to plant, when to plant and when to water, based not only on a grower’s specific locale, but also the weather forecast.
Creating knowledge from data
Developed by Grydan Sas and Giuseppe Grasso Consulting, Ortocloud is an IBM Bluemix cloud solution that incorporates Weather Company Data for IBM Bluemix.
It also uses historical almanac data about average temperatures and precipitation from around the world, comparing the recommended temperature range for specific plants to the area’s weather data. The app then calculates a score for each vegetable. Five stars indicates a high likelihood of a successful harvest, and fewer stars indicate poorer chances for a vegetable to grow.
Getting started
Grydan entered the idea for the gardening app into the 2016 IBM Collaboration Solutions Developer Competition. The idea came from a real-world struggle that Daniele experienced when starting his own kitchen garden, which he found was not as easy as it seemed. What to plant, when to plant and how much to water are something that you can find in some books, but the climate is changing and the books are not really always right.
It took only 200 person hours for Grydan to develop the app from idea to final product, which was less than expected. The Weather Company data are easy to access and very affordable through IBM Bluemix.
A green thumb for everyone
Ortocloud optimizes the success of gardens and reduces costs and waste. Anyone can go to the market and buy vegetables, but growing plants means they’re fresher and they weren’t grown with pesticides.
Growing your own is better. It makes you happier.
Future additions to Grydan’s plant database include herbs and flowers.
Read about other IBM clients who are poised for success using the IBM Cloud as their foundation here.
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Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud