Virtual farming helps manage grazing risks

The latest version of CSIRO's grazing enterprise decision support tool, GrassGro, has been launched with a new flexible user interface and a range of additional powerful features.

GrassGro is a computer program that delivers grazing systems research in a useable form to agricultural advisers, researchers, tertiary educators, policy makers and grassland managers.

Users describe their grazing system, apply different management options and compare the predicted outcomes in an easily-generated report.

Canberra-based lead project officer Libby Salmon believes that GrassGro's ability to help analyse opportunities and risks that variable weather imposes on the profitability and sustainability of grazing systems, such as drought management, makes it a key tool in the current challenging circumstances. This feature will be used in future research projects to assess other long-term impacts of weather variability such as climate change.

The latest version features:

GrassGro is based on decades of CSIRO field experimentation from across Australia and lets the user test the biophysical and business outcomes of a range of possible management decisions.

More information on GrassGro is available through Horizon Agriculture Pty Ltd; horizonag@hzn.com.au; www.hzn.com.au/grassgro.php

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