PapaDX brings AI-assisted potato crop diagnosis and weather alerts to the field

New mobile application from Argentina’s Aconcagua Digital analyses crop photographs and provides possible diagnoses, confidence ratings and management guidance.

By Lukie Pieterse, Editor/Publisher of Potato News Today

A new mobile application developed specifically for potato production is seeking to help growers and agronomists investigate crop health problems using photographs taken in the field.

PapaDX, developed by Argentina-based Aconcagua Digital, uses artificial intelligence-assisted image analysis to examine photographs of potato leaves, plants and tubers. According to company co-founder and potato grower Santiago Cardoso, the application can also analyse wider field and drone images.

The system is designed to identify visual signs associated with potato diseases, pests, nutrient deficiencies, mechanical injuries, environmental stress and herbicide damage. Its conclusions are presented as potential diagnoses rather than simple labels: each result includes a confidence rating, a description of the symptoms identified and a recommended response.

PapaDX also assigns an urgency category to each result: urgent, medium priority, monitor, or no treatment needed.

The application was released on Apple’s App Store in August 2026. It is free to download and try, with an optional Pro subscription providing unlimited use.

From photographs to possible diagnoses

PapaDX’s current App Store listing names a range of diseases and disorders that the application has been designed to recognise. These include late blight, early blight, Rhizoctonia, silver scurf, common scab, Fusarium dry rot, pink rot, Botrytis grey mould, Verticillium wilt, southern blight and the potato viruses PVY, PLRV and TSWV.

The listing also identifies several potato pests, including flea beetles, potato tuber moth, wireworms, Colorado potato beetles, aphids and potato cyst nematodes.

Nutrient-related coverage includes possible deficiencies of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, boron, manganese and iron. PapaDX can also assess visible symptoms associated with harvest bruising, skinning, machinery cuts, heat stress, sunscald, frost and several forms of herbicide injury.

Cardoso told Potato News Today that the diagnostic system was developed using agronomic reference material and subsequently refined with photographs supplied by growers under commercial field conditions.

Weather alerts aim to anticipate disease risk

A recently added feature moves PapaDX beyond the examination of symptoms that are already visible.

According to Cardoso, the application can combine a grower’s location, local weather forecast and the crop’s growth stage to warn when conditions are becoming favourable for a particular problem.

One example is an approaching period of rain and high humidity that could increase the risk of late blight. PapaDX may alert the user to the developing risk window and recommend that preventive action be considered before visible symptoms appear.

Location can be supplied automatically through the device’s GPS function or entered manually as a region. The application also includes an AI-based chat function through which users can add information that may not be apparent from a photograph, including recent frost, strong winds, suspected herbicide drift or soil compaction.

This additional context could be important because very different crop problems can produce similar visual symptoms. Nutrient deficiencies, chemical injury, water stress and disease are not always distinguishable from an image alone.

Developed by a grower with commercial potato experience

PapaDX emerged from Cardoso’s experience in both potato production and digital agriculture.

Cardoso is a third-generation grower and co-owner of Antonio Cardoso e Hijos S.A., a family-owned potato business based in Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires Province. The company, founded in 1938, produces minitubers, seed potatoes and processing potatoes. Its publicly available company information says that it operates laboratory and greenhouse facilities and supplies processing potatoes to Lamb Weston.

Cardoso says he has worked in potato production for more than 17 years. He is also a co-founder of Aconcagua Digital, which has developed PapaDX as part of a wider farm traceability and sustainability platform.

The broader Aconcagua system is intended to record production activities from the field through harvest, transport and delivery. Growers enter information through a guided Telegram chatbot, while the platform calculates indicators connected with fuel consumption, fertiliser use, greenhouse-gas emissions and the environmental impact of crop-protection products.

According to Cardoso, fuel-use reference values for different machinery and irrigation systems are preloaded into the system but can be changed to reflect the equipment used on an individual farm. The platform also calculates fertiliser-related emissions and the Environmental Impact Quotient, or EIQ, associated with pesticide use.

“The goal is real traceability and real sustainability data, instead of the industry-wide estimates most platforms rely on,” Cardoso told Potato News Today.

A decision-support tool, not a laboratory replacement

Image-recognition technology could give growers a useful first indication of what they may be seeing, particularly when rapid access to a crop specialist is difficult. Weather-linked alerts may also help direct attention towards fields that warrant closer inspection.

Nevertheless, photographs alone cannot conclusively diagnose every crop disorder. Image quality, symptom development, potato variety, local disease pressure and similarities between unrelated disorders can all affect the reliability of a visual assessment.

PapaDX should therefore be regarded as a decision-support and preliminary screening tool. Uncertain or economically significant diagnoses should still be confirmed by a qualified agronomist, plant pathologist or diagnostic laboratory where appropriate.

Similarly, any pesticide or fertiliser recommendation must be checked against local product registrations, label directions, resistance-management guidance, environmental requirements and the advice of appropriately qualified crop specialists. A product registered for potato production in one country or region may not be permitted in another.

No independently published validation data or field-scale accuracy results for PapaDX were identified during the preparation of this draft. Growers evaluating the application should take that into account, particularly when a diagnosis could lead to urgent or costly treatment decisions.

Availability

PapaDX is currently publicly listed for iPhone and requires iOS 15.1 or later. The developer describes it as currently listed in English, with Spanish, Portuguese and Hindi support.

Further information is available from Santiago Cardoso, Aconcagua Digital and Antonio Cardoso e Hijos S.A..

The application can be viewed on the Apple App Store.