Sep 26

Introducing Pasture Vibe

Welcome to Pasture Vibe, our new generation Pasture Growth Forecaster. Over 1,000 farmers are now receiving our forecasts and we are delighted to be helping in a very direct manner to maximise production as each season rolls out.  

Pasture Vibe is a significant step forward and incorporates considerable feedback and new ways of looking at growth rate data, including: 

  • Set up multiple farms or locations. 
  • Seamlessly move between reporting periods of fourteen days, one month and two months. 
  • Explore how NIWA’s seasonal outlook may affect forecast results out to three months, which is particularly useful with this season’s strong El Nino already taking hold in the South. 
  • Choose to look at the historical growth rate of any user define period in the past twenty years and compare that with recent growth. 
  • The Pasture manager’s report provides the past ten days growth and the next 60 days growth all presented in ten-day periods. 

Map of Ag (Rezare) has invested in the Pasture Growth Forecaster for the past seven years because we think it is important to our pastoral industry. Whenever we look at people making significant progress with their businesses it is almost invariably due to better pasture management.  

Managing pastures to perform is firstly an issue of mass: ensuring the pasture cover does not get too long or short – often called the stock policy. This provides the chance to manage a real-world feed wedge suited to the agronomy of a high-performance pasture. 

Without a good feel for future pasture growth and a reasonable estimate of pasture cover, most farmers have the odd year that turns into a shocker. I’ll bet farmers also remember the year the rain really got itself organised and fell at the right time; livestock entered paddocks at just the right quality; in fact, you may even be able to point out the two-tooths or heifers that were born in that dream year.  

We believe Pasture Vibe is a key step towards having those years every year. 

So, how do you shift to Pasture Vibe? You may have been receiving forecasts through one of the following ways: 

  • Receiving a weekly email. The old weekly email service is being discontinued, but you can get a new weekly email by signing up at www.pasturevibe.com.
  • By invitation from Farmax – as a Farmax customer, your Pasture Vibe forecast is included in your Farmax subscription.
  • By visiting websites provided by Farmax, DairyNZ, or Beef+Lamb NZ: 
    The previous web sites are now replaced by www.pasturevibe.com – sign up for a one-month trial.  

Our sincere best wishes for the 2023-24 season. It may well turn into a challenging El Nino but there is always scope to look ahead and have a year where you made all the right decisions. 

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