If you've ever wondered what the financial result would be if you let pasture weeds get away on you, there's now a great way to find the answer.
It's free; you can personalise it to your farm and your paddocks, and it will help quantify exactly what you stand to gain or lose by making certain spending decisions about looking after your home-grown pasture this season.
The new Grassmanship® web-based app from Nufarm is designed to help New Zealand farmers get the best out of their pastures all year.
Available at the grassmanship.nz website, it comes packed with features, including several calculators so you 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 NZ Product Manager Matt Strahan.
"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, Matt says, because they give you both higher dry matter yield, and better feed quality, than those which are infested with weeds.
That sets up on-going systemic benefits, not least being easier grazing management, happier animals and more milk in the vat.
Matt 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 use the web-based app, visit the grassmanship.nz website or talk to your Farm Source TSR today.
Grassmanship is a registered trademark of Nufarm Australia Limited