Published on 26/07/2024
It’s free; you can personalise it to a farm and paddocks, and it will help quantify exactly what a farmer stands to gain or lose by making certain spending decisions about looking after home-grown pasture this season.
The new Grassmanship online app from Nufarm is designed to help New Zealand farmers get the best out of pastures all year.
Available at the grassmanship.nz website, it comes packed with features, including several calculators so farmers can compare and contrast the outcome of different weed control scenarios in terms of net return on investment per hectare.
“Farmers intuitively know old run out pastures don’t produce as much feed as newer, higher performing pastures, just like they know maintenance fertiliser supports higher annual feed production, and improved animal genetics benefit their business,” says Nufarm North Island sales manager Richard Bell.
“However, during tighter financial times, it’s understandable to look for ways to trim on-farm costs, with feed, labour, and/or weed management programmes being typical budget categories that come under scrutiny.“
That said, the relatively small investment from controlling weeds in pasture – particularly newly sown pasture – pays a return within six to 12 months in a range of situations.
“That’s why we’ve loaded the Grassmanship programme with separate dairy-specific calculators for both the North and South Island that cover common scenarios like spring weeds, new pasture and winter weeds.”
Clean, productive pastures, year-round, offer a double win, Bell says, because they give farmers both higher dry matter yield, and better feed quality, than those which are infested with weeds.
That sets up ongoing systemic benefits, not least being easier grazing management, happier animals and more milk in the vat.
Bell says in addition to the calculators, grassmanship.nz also provides useful information to help farmers and their advisors get the optimal results from a pasture protection programme, includes a range of Nufarm’s resources that support best practice.
Much of the background data is built from commonly referred to industry statistics and regional pasture growth data generated by Beef+Lamb NZ and DairyNZ.
The tool assumes good agricultural practice – using the right products at the right rates and at the right time. Spraying weeds earlier, rather than later often yields the best results, he says.
Grassmanship.nz is the first of a suite of decision support tools for farmers and rural professionals that Nufarm plans to develop further.
To find out more about the app, visit the grassmanship.nz website.