Teagasc considering weather-style warnings for grasslands
Teagasc is considering a system of warnings, similar to weather warnings, for nitrogen leaching, drought, grass disease and field trafficability.
A system of this type could use warnings on a national or county level for these issues, and may see Teagasc working with Met Éireann to include such warnings in its weekly farming commentary.
The Met Éireann farming commentary already includes information on drying conditions, spraying opportunities and soil conditions, and the national forecaster already has a warning system for blight, which is based on advisory notices ranging from 'very low' to 'very high' blight risk.
It is envisaged that a warning system for nitrogen leaching and other issues would follow a similar format.
The system would build on the work of grass measuring website PastureBase Ireland - which utilises the MoSt Grass Growth (GG) model - and the AgriAdapt initiative, which aims to develop strategies for different sectors of Irish agriculture to adapt to climate change.
The plan to bring about a warning system for farmers on various grass-related farm pressures is within the expertise area of Teagasc researcher Dr. Elodie Ruelle, who works on biologic system modelling.
Explaining the proposed warning system, she said: "We have PastureBase Ireland at the minute, we have already the MoSt GG model, which does grass growth predictions for 84 farms.
"We're going to try to increase the number of farms, I would say, this year, and keep improving the model, but what we want to do also is have, at some stage, maybe some trafficability predictor on a paddock-by-paddock basis, and that could be leading into the weather forecast.
"And you could get warnings saying 'graze this paddock today' because otherwise if the forecast is right, you won't be able to graze it for the next two weeks, or something like that," Dr. Ruelle said.
She added: "The thing I would really love to do - but that's very complicated - is nitrogen fertiliser recommendations, so with the model...we would be able to know how much nitrogen is still in the soil, and then you could give specific recommendations on a paddock-by-paddock level on when and how much fertiliser you should put on each paddock."
However, Dr. Ruelle said "we're not here yet" on such a recommendation system.
She said that, in collaboration with Met Éireann, she also hoped to develop a system of national warnings.
"So the same way you have blight warnings, we can have drought warnings, nitrogen leaching warnings, and so on, and maybe grass disease warnings also, and that could be incorporated into Met Éireann's farming commentary," Dr. Ruelle said.
