Hope everyone has had a fantastic Easter break and enjoyed some time with family and friends. April also coincides with the end of the growing season, and it is a good time to estimate how many days of pasture feed is needed until the summer rains and good pasture growth. Think of it as your own version of an Easter hunt, but instead of chocolate, you’re uncovering valuable feed reserves.
This allows producers to keep a safe stocking rate for available pasture and reduce the need to source supplementary feeding.
The break in season is referred to the Green Date. The first step is to calculate your Green Date – a useful tool for this calculation is the CliMate tool. It is free to use, just requires a log in to start.
- Select ‘How Often’ section in CliMate
- Select the following: ‘Rainfall”, then ‘more than’, then ‘50mm’, then ‘over a three-day period’
- At ‘Your location’, you can search via location or from the map, them the starting date either ‘Sep 1’ or ‘Oct 1’ and enter a date that you think there is 70% change of getting 50mm of rain e.g Feb 9, then for years ‘1900 to present’
- You then adjust the second date earlier or later until 70% of years appears in the answer section.
In the example above, the Green Date for Abercorn is January 7. Once the Green Date is calculated, the number of days from April 1 to January 7 can be determined, which in this case is 282 days.
Which is the number of days grazing that must be budgeted for to ensure there is adequate feed for stock and to maintain groundcover.
Click here to calculate your Green Date!!
