Offered Papers Theme C: Delivering the Benefits from Grassland

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Pastures from Space, a collaborative program between CSIRO Livestock Industries and the Western Australian state Departments of Agriculture and Land Information, has developed the capacity to measure both the biomass and growth rate of annual pasture in the winter rainfall regions of southern Australia using satellite images (Edirisinghe et al., 2002). Producer groups were set up to pilot test the delivery of satellitederived pasture growth rate (PGR, kg dry matter/hectare.day) and biomass (feed on offer or FOO, kg dry matter/hectare) predictions for paddocks on individual farms in Western Australia. This paper reports on the value to Australian sheep producers of satellite-derived PGR information on pastures.

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Pastures from Space - Application of Satellite-Derived Pasture Predictions Improve the Profitability of Australian Sheep Producers

Pastures from Space, a collaborative program between CSIRO Livestock Industries and the Western Australian state Departments of Agriculture and Land Information, has developed the capacity to measure both the biomass and growth rate of annual pasture in the winter rainfall regions of southern Australia using satellite images (Edirisinghe et al., 2002). Producer groups were set up to pilot test the delivery of satellitederived pasture growth rate (PGR, kg dry matter/hectare.day) and biomass (feed on offer or FOO, kg dry matter/hectare) predictions for paddocks on individual farms in Western Australia. This paper reports on the value to Australian sheep producers of satellite-derived PGR information on pastures.