GrassGro

GrassGro – Analysing grazing systems

GrassGro is a decision support tool developed by CSIRO to assist decision-making in sheep and beef enterprises. By quantifying the variability in pasture and animal production, farmers and natural resource managers can assess the risks that variable weather imposes on a grazing system. Users can test management options against a wide range of seasons to achieve more profitable and sustainable utilisation of grasslands.

Brochure (pdf 1.13mb)

What is GrassGro?

GrassGro is a computer program that delivers grazing systems research in a useable form to farmers and their advisers. GrassGro is based on decades of field experimentation from across Australia and lets the user focus on the biophysical and business outcomes of management decisions.
Behind GrassGro™s interface, inputs of historical daily weather data drive models of the interacting processes of pasture growth and animal production. Day-to-day changes in water content of soil, pasture growth and decay and responses to grazing are simulated for a chosen enterprise.
The user describes their livestock, management, costs and prices. The animal model familiar to users of the decision support tool GrazFeed is built into GrassGro to predict animal intake and production of wool, meat and milk.
Seasonal and year-to-year variation in pasture and animal production and gross margins are presented in comprehensive reports for analysis of risk.

These two videos by A/Prof Matthew Harrison of the University of Tasmania provide a tour of how GrassGro works: