Solution name: HerbValo

Aim: To manage the grassland’s production and valorisation during the season or the campaign.

Description:

• HerbValo is a tool that estimates the quantity of valorised grass at the parcel’s scale. This tool enables its user to determine what practices can impact positively or negatively the valorisation of the grass (early grazing, etc.) This tool combines the parcels and a detailed grazing plan (differences between age groups are considered, including the suckling lambs). It also takes the feeding practices into consideration, along with the collected quantities of hay. The calculations involve, for each cycle, the multiplication of the number of days spent at pasture (number of animals x length of the stay) by the flock’s average intake, which was itself calculated using a tool that takes applied pasturing practices and the quality of the grass into account.

How to implement it:

• This tool includes two different files. A printed file enabling the systematic recording of information concerning the chosen parcels (every time the animals are at pasture or during mowing). An Excel file whose role is to process the data gathered (on the printed file) in order to evaluate the quantity of valorised grass per parcel. The results can then be calculated for a month, a season as well as a year, depending on your choice.

Represention of the distribution of the quantity of grass valorised according to the years, the quantity of grass valorised per season an per year and the date of the first and the last intervention

In this case, every year, more than 50% of the total quantity of valorized grass was valorized during spring. In average, farmers valorised 7 Tons of Dry Matter per ha per year of grass. 25 parcels valorised 8.5 TDM/ha/y and 9 parcels valorised more than 10 TMS more than 1 year. More than 80%of the valorisation was made by grazing.