ON FARM NORTHERN CATTLE A different look at SNAPSHOT:Owners: Peter and forage budgeting Nikki Thompson, Managers: Anthony and Anna Dunn, Roma, Queensland The COVID‑19 forecast crop and pasture already do with your eyes, l isolation period growth and rainfall events. but it adds an objective may have given When Anthony joined the element,” he said. some people spare time business 10 years ago, he “Our main motivation for new hobbies, but embraced the system. More was to use the for Queensland beef recently, consultant Col producers Anthony and Paton was employed to best tools to help Anna Dunn, it was all help develop more detailed us manage climate hands on deck preparing forage budgets. variability while their 2020 forage budgets. Traditionally, in autumn, they remaining productive Area: would use visual and physical 7,600ha across two properties It’s only the second season assessments supported by and sustainable.” the Dunns have incorporated historical data to establish Enterprise: satellite imagery and data dry season feed budgets One of the other gains from Mixed cropping and cattle to support forage budgeting through to late spring. satellite‑assisted forage on the Roma property budgeting for Anthony is Livestock: they manage, ‘Echo Hills’, Two years ago they the ability to create a robust,Breeders through to finished so manually verifying the started using Cibo satellite repeatable budgeting cattle, all pasture‑fed data on‑ground was their imagery to support this procedure which can be easily top priority. decision making. Pasture: used by other staff members, Buffel, improved pasture mix Anthony, Anna and their “It was the driest period in including new employees. and leucaena two daughters turned a the property’s history and The next steps in the break from home schooling we felt it was a great time evolution of the forage Soil: Scrub earlier this year into a to start with a baseline budgeting system at Echo Rainfall: 575mm session in the paddock, and understand how much Hills is automating rainfall armed with a quadrat, ground cover we need to data collection (currently scales and a smartphone to retain to get the optimal gain Anthony Dunn collected at 15 gauges E: ab.dunn@bigpond.com measure, weigh and record when rain returns and to across two properties) and five pasture quadrants see just how quickly it does applying the budgeting to Col Paton for each pre‑determined grow,” Anthony said. other feed sources such as E: clpaton@bigpond.com satellite location. Fine‑tuning the system forage oatsand leucaena. Profitable Grazing Forage measurement and While Anthony feels satellite Producer training Systems budgeting has been a imagery already paints a mla.com.au/pgs lifetime practice for the good picture, adding data Producers can access Cibo Labs app property’s owner, Peter from pasture measurements a new training package, cibolabs.com.au Thompson, and his family. during the development Satellite Assisted Forage phase will only make it Budgeting, through For decades, it’s been MLA’s Profitable Grazing Below: Anthony Dunn and his stronger and more accurate. Systems (PGS) program daughters Eve and Alice. routine practice to develop spreadsheets to record and “It doesn’t replace what you (see story opposite). ■ LESSONS LEARNED > Satellite imagery is an additional tool to support accurate forage budgeting. > Map property and paddock boundaries first to make the satellite forage budgeting process easier. > Forage budgeting doesn’t just improve pasture use – it also helps avoid overgrazing. 29