Pasture Management Checklist

The aim of this checklist is to help you to improve the profitability and sustainability of your grazing enterprise by pasture assessment and adaptive pasture management. Improved pasture assessment will allow you to improve management and optimise pasture performance. At the same time these skills will allow you to determine appropriate stocking rates for your pastures throughout the year.

The pasture management checklist

There are 12 key points to assessing the condition of your pastures and these are:

1. Herbage mass
2. Herbage mass – percentage edible
3. Percentage green
4. Ground cover
5. Broadleaved plants component of herbage mass
6. Legume component of herbage mass
7. Annual grass component of herbage mass
8. Perennial grass component of herbage mass
9. Diversity of perennial grass species
10. Pasture growth rate
11. Water use efficiency
12. Pasture utilisation rate

Each key point is described in detail and examples of how to conduct each assessment are provided.