Electronic Pasture Meters

Electronic pasture meters can measure pasture height and estimate pasture mass over an entire farm in just a few hours.

Dairy Australia's Electronic pasture meters fact sheet describes how quad bike-based pasture meters work and how dairy farmers can use the information generated by the technology. Contact details of the major suppliers, together with approximate cost and other relevant information is included.

Previous research conducted by Agriculture Victoria as part of Murray Dairy's Accelerating Change project compared two major electronic pasture meters – the Pasture Reader and the C-Dax Pasture Meter.

More information on this research and a video of the Pasture Reader in action is available in the Accelerating Change newsletter.

Case study

The following case study demonstrates a dairy farmer's experience with the electronic pasture meter.

Duncan MacDonald, Yolla, Tasmania

Duncan MacDonald manages two 550-cow dairy farms at Yolla in north-west Tasmania. The farms are about five kilometres apart and each have a 180-hectare milking platform that is a mix of dryland and irrigation. Duncan measures the amount of pasture in each paddock on a regular basis with a C-Dax Pasture Meter.

Precision dairy technology: C-Dax Pasture Meter (PDF, 3.6MB)