PastureBase Ireland
PastureBase Ireland is the number one tool to help Irish dairy, beef, and sheep farmers manage their grass production and utilisation. Additional features are continuously being added to improve the user experience and the quality of the information available to the farmer user.
PastureBase Ireland is the national grassland database providing daily updates on grass growth across the country. With a major focus on improving the nitrogen use & management on farms, PBI has added a number of important tools to assist farmers to better match nitrogen supply with grass demand
New Pasturebase Tools
Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE)
The Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE) calculator measures how efficiently nitrogen in slurry, feed and fertiliser converts to milk and meat. The calculator will also determine the farm gate nitrogen surplus on the farm. Improving NUE and reducing nitrogen surplus will have large environmental benefits. Farmers will be able to benchmark their NUE and farm gate nitrogen surplus values with top performing farms as well as their peer farmers.
Nitrogen Planner
A ‘Nitrogen Planner’, which give farmers monthly nitrogen recommendations, has been already developed in April 2021 and is very well received by the farmers using the system.
Farm Mapping tool
A new Farm Mapping tool was added in July, which allows farmers to map their farms to allow an easy way to profile grass supply, soil fertility and nitrogen applications. Farmers can also now add the closest weather station to their farm, and receive up to date weather data to their PBI accounts. This will allow better focused decisions around timing of nitrogen throughout the season.
MoSt GG model
Teagasc will be intergrating the MoSt GG model into PastureBase Ireland in the near future, to have a grass growth prediction specific to each farm. The live predictions are run twice weekly for the following 7 days. The predictions include weather data, soil type, and management information, which come directly from PastureBase Ireland.
PBI App
All farmers currently using PBI should download the app right now, from the different stores. The app is free to download. Grass covers, graze dates, fertiliser application, livestock number/intakes as well as milk data can be quickly recorded while undertaking the task in the paddock, whether mobile connectivity is poor or not available.
Watch videos here about PastureBase
Why use PastureBase?
- PBI farmers grow more grass than the average farmer (NFS)
- Increased grass utilisation equates to more profit for the farmer
- Able to enter data through our smart phone app
- Benchmark against other farms in your discussion group or locality
- An array of tools, grass wedge, rotation planners, budgets, reports
How using PastureBase benefits the farmer and their farm
- Can quantify the amount of grass on their farm on a given day
- Farmer is able to plan their grazing week ahead
- Easier to communicate to farm employees
- Able to calculate the amount of grass grown on the farm
- Increase output – livestock are grazing high quality grass throughout the grazing season
- Able to use supplementation strategy – reduce input costs
PastureBase is easy to use
- A smartphone app is available
- The app works offline
- Export data to PDF and excel, so you can save or email results to others
- One app can manage multiple farms
Offline App
Sign up - Find out more
If you are interested in registering for PastureBase please contact your local Teagasc advisor, or call our dedicated help centre 046-9200965 or email support@pbi.ie
Pasturebase statistics 2020
View Interactive Grass Growth Map