SASKATOON — An engineer wouldn’t design a building without a computer and farmers shouldn’t be any different when planning their pasture program, said a University of Saskatchewan researcher.
Roger Cohen has adapted a computer program from Australia to help Canadian producers make farming decisions.
By changing a few numbers Cohen’s program can predict the number of grazing days, nutrition requirements of a pasture or winter feeding requirements.
The program is based on climate data. The combination of weather information and nutritional requirements of livestock and nutritional information on the crops produces an easy-to-use graph.
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If there has been little rain the computer predicts how much supplement would be needed to meet the animal’s requirements or how many grazing days would be available.
So far Cohen has only added historic weather information from Saskatoon and data on crested wheat grass to the computer.
He’s hoping to get funding to develop the program further. Once he gets funding the program should be available within five years.
Cohen thinks the program could be used by crop insurance agents, banks or large pasture managers.
“More and more computers have a use on the individual farm to help make management decisions,” he said.
