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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
