Description
Yield and nutrient removal of grassland is assessed site specific to adjust fertilizer application accordingly. The knowledge is also used to plan resowing and other maintaining measures.
Improve resource efficiency
Optimizing the efficiency of fertilization and fodder management; to adapt fertilizer application site specific according to the respective yield; In the beginning a high amount of planning was necessary to ensure useful data; the work load in harvest times is a little higher, than without yield measuring.
Farm description
Environment
- Soil type: mainly marshland; moor
- Climate: Temperate oceanic climate
- Average altitude: 0.5 m a.s.l. ; no slope
Grassland management
- Grazing only for cattle rearing
- Six cuts per year
Structure
- Annual Work Unit: 5.4 workers
- Agricultural Area: 286 ha UAA
- 120 ha permanent grassland; 80 ha silage maize
- 392 Dairy cows and 252 heifers
Animal performance
- 10,000 l / year/dairy animal
Why it is working
The farmer is highly interested in the topic and put in a lot of effort and planning.
The layout of the farm in this respect helped to implement the technique, because there is only one possible way from the fields towards the silo and this is where the scale was placed. This prevented harvest workers to miss scaling their load, even if they were under a lot of time pressure due to weather conditions.
The scaling machinery was supplemented by IT-technology that enabled the harvest workers to match the weight with a specific site electronically without delay.
