Wouldn’t it be helpful if you could quickly calculate the economic benefits of boosting autumn pasture growth before spending any money making it happen?
Now there’s a new way you and your TSR can do exactly that. Grassmanship.nz has been upgraded this season to include a return on investment calculator for using plant growth regulator for pasture ProGibb® SG.
“If you’re looking ahead to planning and managing your winter feed wedge curves, this could be a handy tool to support good decision making,” says Nufarm National Product Manager Matt Strahan.
Many farmers have already benefited from using the Grassmanship.nz calculators with their TSRs to identify profitable weed control options for getting the best out of their pastures.
“We wanted to build on that, and adding ProGibb® SG gives farmers and their reps another fast, reliable source of data to help clarify decisions that can have significant implications in the weeks ahead,” Matt says.
ProGibb® SG is a good way to push feed ahead of deficit periods, and is much faster than nitrogen which might take 10 weeks to show a full response. This calculator has been built on DairyNZ regional pasture growth data, which is freely available. Farmers can select which island they’re in, then drill down to their region, or use the total island average.”
Independently verified Nufarm trial work has repeatedly shown a 30-60%1 pasture growth response rate to ProGibb® SG applications.
Matt says applying the plant growth regulator across 25ha on a Canterbury dairy farm in May shows a net return of $4,000 (using a mid-range response of 45%, and factoring in the recommended retail cost of ProGibb® SG with Contact™ Xcel, plus an average application cost of $45 per ha).
“That’s based on average pasture utilisation of 80%, and a dairy payout of $10 per kg milksolids. But the numbers look even better for earlier application. If you put it on in April, when daily pasture growth rates are higher than May, the net return doubles, from $4,000 to $8,000.”
The Grassmanship.nz app also includes calculators for assessing return on investment for weed control in newly sown pasture.
“The potential payback is compelling. For example, where a dairy farm is aiming to growth 16 tonne dry matter per hectare per year, and has medium weed pressure of 10% in the sward, spraying 10ha of new pasture with Tribal® Gold and Bonza® Gold would deliver a net return of about $750 per ha,” Matt says.
“Like the ProGibb® SG example, this is based on a $10 per kg milksolids payout, with the industry standard equation of 15kg dry matter eaten creating 1kg milksolids. A key point to note is that removing weeds improves overall pasture utilisation, because animals don’t like to graze around them.”
For more information about using Grassmanship.nz to get the best out of your pasture this season, talk to your Farm Source TSR.
Matt Strahan - Nufarm National Product Manager
1 - Edmeades D.C. 2009. ProGibb® SG an independent assessment of the science. AgKnowledge report for Nufarm Ltd. Matthew, C., Hofmann, W.A., Osborne, M.A. 2009. Pasture response to gibberellins: a review and recommendations. New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research 52:213-225.
®ProGibb is a registered trademark of Valent BioSciences Corporation, Libertyville, Illinois, USA.
®Bonza and Tribal are registered trademarks of Nufarm Ltd.
™Contact is a trademark of Nufarm Ltd.