Welcome to the interest group

'Grassland management'

The large European grassland area (see figures for permanent grassland and productivity) have different functions and are essential for economy, environment and people.  For economic reasons grass is basic feed for cows to produce milk and meat. In some cases grass is also used as raw fibre for bio-energy production or bedding material. For the environment grass contributes to water quality and management, biodiversity and adaptation and mitigation. The social aspect of grass is that it contributes directly to the local culture.

In this interest group we focus on the economic value of grass as part of production system where cows are able to transfer grass into valuable milk. The challenge of a professional dairy farmer nowadays is how to produce efficiently milk form grass.

In this interest group you can find best practices, background information, nice video’s, discussion between farmers, advisors and experts. We are interested in the exchange of ideas en experience when we would like to bring practical grassland management to the next level, which is informed decision support based on data. So new developments in measuring methods and analytical tools to support decision making will be discussed.

Within the interest group we will discuss  the areas of:

• Optimizing grass growth, with e.g. decisions on fertilising, drainage, irrigation and crop protection.
• Optimizing grass harvesting, with e.g. decisions on grazing, mowing and baling or silage harvesting.
• Grass in the farming system, with e.g choice for grazing system, size and place of parcels, feeding strategy for cows during grazing.

In Europe there are quite some different farming systems that will influence need for and availability of data for decision making. The following figure describes the position of the 4D4F interest group.

Last update: February 8, 2017