Forecast of Herbage Production Under Continuous Grazing

The utilization of pasture is very sensitive to oscillations in herbage growth. The farmer’s daily planning involves decisions on pasture use as well as on the amount and composition of supplement feeding. In this planning, expected daily growth rate is an important factor. Often the knowledge and experience about the growth rate is first available after changes in management should have been made. A different growth rate than expected should lead to changes in the grazing area or in the supplement feeding. Therefore, a simple model of grass/clover growth under grazing and irrigated conditions was developed. From spring 2004, the model was used to compute a forecast of grass/clover growth, which has been available to Danish farmers and advisors in the online crop information system PlanteInfo (for a version in English, see planteinfo.dk/english)