Vidacycle offers a pioneering suite of agricultural technology products designed to empower farmers in their transition to and ongoing practice of regenerative agriculture. At its core, Vidacycle is about rethinking farming practices to be more in tune with nature, fostering sustainable agricultural ecosystems. Their user-friendly apps, including Soilmentor, Sectormentor, and Workmentor, are crafted by farmers, for farmers, to provide simple yet powerful digital tools that enhance understanding of the land and streamline agricultural operations.
These innovations are rooted in the Vidacycle farm in Chile, a family-run venture that serves as both inspiration and laboratory for their technological developments. This hands-on approach ensures the tools are practical and directly address the real-world challenges faced by independent farmers. By focusing on soil health, biodiversity, and ecological balance, Vidacycle's solutions aim to build resilient, sustainable, and profitable farming operations globally.
Vidacycle's commitment extends beyond just technology, promoting a holistic view of farming that prioritizes the health of the soil and encourages diversity on the farm. Their applications enable farmers to monitor soil health, manage vineyards, track labor, and make data-backed decisions, all conveniently from a smartphone. This approach democratizes access to sophisticated agricultural data, ensuring that farmers worldwide can benefit from Vidacycle's innovations regardless of their tech-savviness.
Key Features
Vidacycle's suite of applications is built on a foundation of features specifically designed to support and advance regenerative agricultural practices. A primary characteristic is their Regenerative Agriculture Focus, ensuring that every tool contributes to enhancing soil health, promoting biodiversity, and increasing overall farm resilience. This commitment is deeply embedded in the product philosophy, guiding farmers towards more sustainable and ecologically sound methods.
The Farmer-Centric Design is another cornerstone, reflecting that the apps are developed by farmers for farmers. This results in highly intuitive and user-friendly interfaces that require minimal training, making advanced data collection and analysis accessible to a broad user base. Coupled with Offline Functionality, farmers can confidently record data in remote areas without internet access, with all information syncing automatically to an online platform once connectivity is restored.
For efficient field operations, Vidacycle incorporates Contactless/RFID Tag Integration. This feature allows for quick and accurate data entry at specific locations or for individual plants and workers, significantly reducing manual effort and potential errors. The collected data is then transformed into Data-Driven Insights through visual reports and charts, empowering farmers to make informed decisions based on tangible trends and observations rather than guesswork. Moreover, the Customizability of the apps means farmers can tailor what they record to their specific operational needs, ensuring the data collected is always relevant and valuable.
Unique to Soilmentor is the Soilmentor Regen Platform, a specialized dashboard that enables benchmarking of soil health against 10 'Regen Indicators'. This platform also provides expert guidance and practical tips from renowned agro-ecologist Nicole Masters, offering a clear roadmap for improving soil resilience. Furthermore, GPS Mapping is integrated across the apps for precise location tracking of samples, sites, and vineyard boundaries, enhancing the accuracy of data correlation. For viticulture, Weather Station Integration in Sectormentor allows for direct data feeds from Sencrop or Trak365 stations, providing crucial environmental context for phenology and yield predictions.
Technical Specifications
| Specification | Value |
|---|---|
| Operating System Compatibility | iOS, Android |
| iOS Minimum Requirement | iOS 15.6 or later (for Sectormentor) |
| Android Minimum Requirement | Android 6.0 or higher (for Sectormentor) |
| Device Type | Smartphones |
| Data Collection Method | Electronic (contactless/RFID) tags |
| Connectivity | Offline functionality with online data synchronization |
| Location Tracking | GPS mapping |
| Weather Data Integration | Sencrop or Trak365 stations (for Sectormentor) |
| Soil Health Benchmarking | 10 'Regen Indicators' via Soilmentor Regen Platform |
| Data Accessibility | Remotely accessible via online platform from any computer |
Use Cases & Applications
Vidacycle's suite of apps offers practical solutions across various agricultural scenarios, empowering farmers to implement regenerative practices effectively.
Soil Health Monitoring and Improvement: With Soilmentor, farmers can conduct simple, in-field tests to assess soil biology, chemistry, and physics. They can record and track biodiversity, map soil sampling sites with GPS, and visualize trends in soil health over time. This enables informed decisions, such as adjusting cover cropping strategies or grazing rotations, to build more resilient and fertile soils. For instance, farmers can monitor earthworm populations, wet aggregate stability, and plant diversity to understand the 'aliveness' of their soil.
Comprehensive Vineyard Management: Sectormentor is specifically designed for vineyards and tree crops, allowing farmers to monitor vines and trees both above and below ground. This includes predicting yields based on flower or bunch counts, tracking ripeness across different blocks, and monitoring long-term vine health indicators like cane weights and vigor. It also facilitates tracking vineyard activities, work reports, visualizing pruning weight trends, and exploring phenology, all critical for optimizing grape production and vine health.
Efficient Farm Labor Tracking: Workmentor simplifies the complex task of tracking worker activity. Farmers can easily record who worked, when, and for how long. During harvest, it allows for precise tracking of how much each worker picked, streamlining payroll and performance analysis. This capability was initially developed to track blueberry picking, demonstrating its versatility across different harvest types.
Biodiversity and Ecological Balance Assessment: Beyond just soil, the apps enable farmers to record and track biodiversity on their farms, from plant diversity to wildlife observations. This helps in understanding the ecological health of the farm and making management decisions that foster a richer, more diverse ecosystem, which is a cornerstone of regenerative agriculture.
Data-Driven Decision Making for Resilience: By centralizing data from various observations and tests, Vidacycle provides farmers with a holistic view of their farm's performance and health. This data-driven approach supports strategic management decisions to build resilience against challenges like extreme weather events, as exemplified by the Vidacycle farm's experience in rebuilding after wildfires and droughts.
Strengths & Weaknesses
| Strengths ✅ | Weaknesses ⚠️ |
|---|---|
| Regenerative Agriculture Focus: Products are purpose-built to support and enhance regenerative farming practices, directly contributing to soil health, biodiversity, and farm resilience. | Pricing Not Publicly Available: Specific pricing details for subscriptions are not transparently published, requiring direct inquiry. |
| Farmer-Centric & User-Friendly: Designed by farmers for farmers, the apps are intuitive and require minimal training, making them highly accessible for diverse users. | Reliance on Smartphone and RFID Hardware: Optimal use often requires a smartphone and an initial investment in RFID tags and compatible scanning hardware. |
| Offline Functionality: Critical for remote agricultural areas, allowing data collection without an internet connection and syncing later. | Specific OS Requirements: While broadly compatible, specific iOS 15.6+ and Android 6.0+ versions are required for certain apps like Sectormentor, potentially excluding older devices. |
| Data-Driven Insights & Benchmarking: Transforms raw data into actionable insights, with unique features like the Soilmentor Regen Platform for benchmarking against key indicators. | Primary Focus on Viticulture/Trees for Sectormentor: While Soilmentor and Workmentor are general, Sectormentor is highly specialized for vines and trees, limiting its direct applicability for other crop types. |
| Customizability & Flexibility: Allows farmers to tailor data recording to their specific operations, ensuring relevance and utility. | |
| Comprehensive Monitoring: Offers tools for soil health, biodiversity, crop health (vines/trees), and labor tracking within a single ecosystem. |
Benefits for Farmers
Vidacycle's technology delivers tangible business value and operational advantages for farmers committed to regenerative practices. By providing precise tools for data collection and analysis, farmers can gain a deeper understanding of their land and operations, leading to more informed and strategic decision-making. This directly contributes to improved farm resilience by fostering healthier soil ecosystems that are better equipped to handle environmental stresses like drought or disease.
The focus on soil health enhancement through tools like Soilmentor can lead to long-term benefits such as increased water retention, improved nutrient cycling, and reduced reliance on synthetic inputs, ultimately lowering operational costs and promoting environmental sustainability. For vineyards, Sectormentor's ability to predict yields, monitor ripeness, and track vine health helps optimize harvest timing and resource allocation, potentially leading to improved grape quality and yield.
Furthermore, Workmentor streamlines labor management, reducing administrative burden and increasing efficiency in tracking worker activities and harvest yields. Overall, Vidacycle empowers independent farmers to build more profitable and sustainable businesses by providing the insights needed to work more effectively with natural systems, ensuring both ecological health and economic viability.
Integration & Compatibility
Vidacycle's applications are designed to seamlessly integrate into existing farm operations by leveraging familiar smartphone technology. The core of their integration strategy lies in the apps' ability to function offline in the field and then synchronize data to an online platform when an internet connection is available. This ensures that data collected on a mobile device is accessible and viewable remotely from any computer, allowing for comprehensive analysis and record-keeping without disrupting fieldwork.
Specifically, Sectormentor enhances its utility by integrating with external weather station data from providers such as Sencrop or Trak365. This allows vineyard managers to overlay their vine observations with crucial environmental data, providing a more holistic view for phenology tracking, Growing Degree Day analysis, and disease pressure assessment. The use of electronic (contactless/RFID) tags further streamlines data entry, allowing for quick and accurate association of observations with specific locations or individual plants, thereby integrating physical farm elements with digital records.
Vidacycle's approach means that while the apps provide powerful standalone capabilities, they also serve as a central hub for various types of farm data, consolidating information that might otherwise be disparate. This helps farmers to build a comprehensive digital record of their regenerative journey, making it easier to track progress, share insights with teams, and make informed decisions that fit into their broader farm management strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| How does this product work? | Vidacycle apps like Soilmentor, Sectormentor, and Workmentor allow farmers to record observations, measurements, and activities directly on their smartphones, often using RFID tags for quick data entry. Data is collected offline and then synced to an online platform when internet is available, making it accessible from any computer. |
| What is the typical ROI? | By providing data-driven insights into soil health, crop performance, and labor efficiency, Vidacycle helps farmers make informed decisions that lead to more resilient, sustainable, and profitable operations. This can result in improved yields, reduced input costs, and optimized labor management through better understanding of farm ecosystems. |
| What setup/installation is required? | Users need to download the Vidacycle apps on their iOS or Android smartphones and create an account. For optimal use, especially with Sectormentor, specific hardware for scanning RFID tags is recommended, which would need to be acquired and deployed in the field at relevant sample sites. |
| What maintenance is needed? | The apps primarily require regular updates, which are typically managed through the respective app stores. Farmers also need to ensure their data is synced periodically to the online platform when an internet connection is available to maintain up-to-date records and remote accessibility. |
| Is training required to use this? | Vidacycle apps are designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, developed by farmers for farmers, requiring minimal training to use effectively. Most users can learn to utilize the core functionalities of the apps in under five minutes due to their straightforward design. |
| What systems does it integrate with? | Sectormentor integrates with external weather station data from Sencrop or Trak365 to provide comprehensive environmental insights for viticulture. All Vidacycle apps sync data to a centralized online platform, allowing for remote access and analysis from any computer, fitting into existing farm data management. |
Pricing & Availability
Specific price ranges for Vidacycle's products are not publicly available on their website. Pricing for Sectormentor is noted to be based on the planted area of the vineyard, with different tiers for various acreage sizes, as well as specific options for consultants or vineyard management companies. Soilmentor requires an account and subscription for access. For detailed pricing information tailored to your specific farm size and needs, please contact us via the Make inquiry button on this page.
