A comparison of four methods for estimating herbage yield of temperate dairy pastures

Abstract

Abstract During two years, yields of temperate pastures on six dairy farms in Northland were measured within quadrats by two cutting methods (cut to a standardised trimmed level, or as total herbage) after assessing for visual dry matter (DM) yield, pasture height, rising plate reading, and aircorrected capacitance meter (probe) reading. Regression analyses were conducted between assessment methods and pasture yield indices of trimmed fresh yield, trimmed DM yield, and total DM yield. The relationships were effectively linear and highly statistically significant, but there was little uniformity in the regression equations for each method of assessment The four methods of assessing yield had similar errors.