and 
Preserving heritage orchards with centimeter-precision mapping
On this page
Products used in this tutorial
In a heritage orchard, every tree is special. But over time, plastic labels break, paper maps fade, and people forget which tree is which. When you lose the name and place of a rare fruit tree, that unique variety can be lost forever.
A community group managing rare fruit trees faced this exact problem. They wanted to create a clear digital map. On this map, every tree needed its own profile with its name, health status, and exact location.
The Problem: standard GPS is not accurate enough
To create a digital map, you need GPS coordinates. However, standard GPS on smartphones or tablets has a big problem: it is off by several meters.
Standard GPS accuracy is usually between 2 and 5 meters. In a crowded orchard where trees are planted close together, being off by 2 meters means your map points to the wrong tree. If you cannot tell tree A from tree B on your screen, the map is useless.
The Solution: RTK for centimeter accuracy
- Standard GPS: Your phone receives signals directly from satellites in space. Weather and atmosphere layers disturb these signals. This creates an error of a few meters.
- RTK GPS: The RTK receiver uses correction data from a nearby station to remove atmosphere errors in real time. This reduces the error from a few meters down to just 1 or 2 centimeters.
Using QField’s built-in NTRIP client, the farmer connected to the CentipedeRTK network (a free NTRIP correction service with good coverage in France) to get real-time RTK corrections, providing an exact position within 1 to 2 centimeters.
The worker simply walked up to the tree trunk, tapped a button on the phone screen to save the exact location, and added notes about tree health and fruit variety. Check our tutorial how to connect external GNSS/RTK receiver to QField app on iOS or Android.
The result: a reliable digital map
By switching from basic smartphone GPS to Ardusimple RTK, the orchard team solved their mapping problems:
- No More Guesswork: You always know which tree you are looking at.
- Long-Term Protection: Workers 10 or 20 years from now will know the exact history of every tree for grafting, care, and harvesting.
- Budget-friendly: Professional surveying equipment used to cost thousands of dollars. Ardusimple makes centimeter-level accuracy affordable and simple for farmers.
Still having issues?
Contact us for support from a real engineer—not AI—or request the tutorial you’re missing