NZ gets free pasture management tool

Pasture management, quality and quantity, has direct links to productivity and with grass being the cheapest form of food, farmers need to be sure they are making the most of their supply, says a New Zealand company.


LIC’s general manager of Farm Systems Rob Ford say, “If you get that wrong, then your production will be suffering as a consequence." 

“Often the most successful farmers, with the highest production, are the ones who are paying careful attention to how their pasture is tracking too.”

And a new addition to the dairy farmer coop’s herd recording software, MINDA, makes it simple, Rob said, with the launch of LIC’s new pasture management tool on 21 February.

Known as MINDA Land & Feed Basic, the new feature is free for MINDA customers, with a simple tool for farmers to record their grass covers and create a feed wedge.

A feed wedge gives a farmer a clear picture of their feed supply, and allows them to see what likely changes may be ahead, Rob said.

“They just need to add data from the last farm walk, and MINDA does the rest avoiding all the time normally taken to collate and interpret the data.

“They can quickly see how each of their paddocks are tracking, from shortest to longest, all compared to pre and post grazing targets.

“Then they can use this information to make decisions about which paddocks to graze next, harvesting silage, re-grassing, applying nitrogen, purchasing or feeding supplement and culling cows or increasing numbers.”

MINDA Land & Feed Basic is the first of a suite of pasture management tools coming to MINDA, as the traditional herd management software moves to be a full farm management system.

Rob said the majority of New Zealand dairy farmers use MINDA to improve their herd’s performance, so it is a logical extension to provide farmers with tools to make it easier and more efficient to monitor their grass growth in MINDA too.

“Farmers want to manage every aspect of their farm operations; they trust MINDA to manage their herd records – now it does their land as well.

“This is just the first step for pasture management tools in MINDA, and it is an opportunity to give it a go, see how easy it is, and what value it can add, especially with both animal and land information in one whole farm management system,” Rob said.

A ‘Pro’ version will follow later this year with more enhanced tools for planning, forecasting and feed budgeting.

MINDA Land & Feed joins another recent addition to MINDA - MINDA Milk - on the new web-based platform at www.minda.co.nz.