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Integrated Farming Tools

Optigraze is a scalable Smart Farming Platform (SFP) for adaptive management. Optigraze considers the most important decisions dairy farmers need to make regarding pasture variability, both temporally and spatially, and at different scales.

The need to utilize resources efficiently and under growing market and climatic variability creates a compelling argument for OptiGraze. The future of many dairy farms (in particular those remaining small scale) will depend largely on the ability to continue milking cows efficiently, at lower feed and labor costs, and with less environmental damage. Farmers must cope increasingly with shifting climates, growing demands for value-added protein foods (i.e. milk and meat) and volatile  prices. Certainly, the sustainable intensification of dairy farms must go on, so we must place a particular attention on sustaining profit and production gains while seriously reversing trends on heavy fertilizer use, fossil fuel consumption and other polluting inputs. OptiGraze makes such adaptive management possible by integrating state-of-the-art remote sensing of pasture, semi-automated imagery processing, and process-based modeling of pasture and animal systems.:

Either, high resolution drone- (centimeters) or broad satellite- (meters) heatmaps extract large data sets of pasture cover (kg dry matter/ha) data that can be interpreted quickly for inspection of spatial variability of grass cover, grazing wedges, or verification of pregrazing and postgrazing spectral targets.

Despite this value, heatmaps alone have a limited application unless they are translated into meaningful information source to support decision making. OptiGraze links information of growth-rates and cover from heatmaps with farm and herd characteristics to output prescriptions for cow, pasture, grazing, and feeding management. OptiGraze can give farmers confidence to anticipate environmental change proactively, and instead of reacting too late to a lack of grass cover, declining milk production, or poor cow condition.

Below is an example for a herd of 500 moderate-sized Jerseys on a platform of 250 ha of typical temperate pasture. At example average growth rate of 27 kg/ha/d, this farmer has no hurry to take quick actions, either against future grass deficits (i.e. increase  feed supplement), or surplus of grass (i.e. harvest as baleage). As long as prevailing conditions for growth remain (temperature, radiation, nutrients and water), "this business as usual management" is capable to support the intended stocking rate of 2 milking cow/ha and without any additional feed supplement, other than the diet comprising 75% grass and 25% concentrate. Further, the maintenance of both, pregrazing and postgrazing targets and grazing feed wedge will support desirable rates of "plant regrowth" at a reasonable herbage allowance (27 kg/cow/day), level of grass intake (14 kg DM/cow), and 42 days of resting until the next grazing rotation. Of course, all 32 paddocks of the farm must enter the current grazing scheme across the three-way grazing platform (i.e. A-B-C Cow Traffic System). As conditions for grass growth change (temperature, radiation, nutrients and water), either above or below the breakeven average growth, the farmer must adapt rapidly to the future changing scenarios. OptiGraze makes this rapid adaptive decision making possible for you!   

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Here, I invite you to peek on a simplified "Desktop Demo Version of OPTIGRAZE". This is ideal for Robot Farmers (conventional is welcome too) that are seeking to take the most from robots while managing their cows for a high utilization and conversion of grass. You can examine opportunities for cow traffic using different grazing layouts in integration with feeding (i.e. A-B-C Grass +/- A-B-C PMR drops). You can also check out expectations and goals for stocking rates to dimension your robot capacity needs, and more. Importantly, use this demo version to examine your own Pasture, Cow, and Feeding prescriptions. Follow directions carefully, as "YOU ARE ONLY ALLOWED TO CHANGE YELLOW OR RED CELLS".

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As a homework, I suggest you to consider the following steps,

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1) Set goals and plans for you pasture-base feeding system (systems 1 to 5, by changing %pasture and % concentrate in the top right section of the demo). The demo could be used for 'zero grazing', by changing growth rates to a value of '0,001'

2) Pasture grass area (ha) and number of paddocks (in top left section)

2) Number of cows and type (Type 1 to 4, depending on cow type/size; adjustment for Fat, Protein, & Lactose.is possible)

3) Target wedge both for pregrazing and postgrazing cover; and "actual pregrazing cover" (The last is determined by using local high resolution drone flights or remotely by using satellite imagery)

4) Grass Growth rate; this is the main monitoring and decision variable for achievement of high grass utilization. Farmers are encouraged to inspect changes in growth rates weekly so they can inform adaptive prescriptions rapidly. (Growth rate is determined by using local weather data coupled with vegetation data from high resolution drone flights, or from more broad satellite imagery with lower resolution). . 

5) Nutrition and feeding. Adjustment for different chemical composition and digestibility traits for pasture, concentrates and forage supplements is possible. Likely substitution rates for concentrates and forages can be adjusted for more detailed prediction of intake rates, grass utilization, and residuals .  

If you have questions about how OptiGraze may fit to your operation, management needs or robotic expectations, please contact me here. I'll be delighted to hear about your plans.

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