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Pasture management is an important aspect of dairy farming, making up a significant portion of the dairy cow diet in many countries. Where grazing is the primary feed source, it relies on the quantity and nutritive value of grass. Pasture management involves a number of aspects, such as the measurement of pasture quantity and quality. It also increasingly uses data to make grazing management decisions, e.g. in grass allocations, in combination with grass growth predictions in order to refine overall management decisions. This chapter presents an overview of the various technologies used in pasture management with particular focus on new precision technologies.
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Grass measurement technologies
- 3 Ground-based grass measurements: visual estimation, rising plate meter and destructive measurement
- 4 Determining quality parameters of fresh grass: near infrared spectroscopy
- 5 Proximal sensing techniques for measuring grass cover and quality: non-spectral and spectral methods
- 6 Remote sensing techniques for measuring grass cover and quality
- 7 Decision support tools for grassland management
- 8 Modelling/predicting grass growth
- 9 Factors affecting on-farm digitisation
- 10 Conclusion
- 11 Where to look for further information
- 12 References