Evaluating the accuracy – labour trade-off between alternative grassland monitoring methods by rising plate meters

Jones, A.G., Takahashi, T., Lee, M.R.F. and Harris, P. (2025) Evaluating the accuracy – labour trade-off between alternative grassland monitoring methods by rising plate meters. The Journal of Agricultural Science. ISSN 0021-8596

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Abstract

Abstract Production efficiency of pasture-based livestock production systems is primarily driven by the level of pasture utilisation, and, as such, regular monitoring of herbage mass (HM) provides essential information to assist on-farm decision making. Unfortunately, this practice is seldom carried out on commercial farms, likely due to the time commitment required across the entire grass-growing season. Recent studies have shown, however, that even moderately inaccurate HM data can improve the system-side profitability compared to enterprises with no data, warranting further investigations into the trade-off between the accuracy and cost associated with HM measurements. Using a weekly multi-paddock dataset from the North Wyke Farm Platform research site in Devon, UK, this study evaluated the technical validity and labour-saving potential of a simplified ‘pasture walk’ protocol for rising plate meters, under which only data along the diagonal transect – rather than the industry-standard W-shaped pathways – of the paddock are collected. Across 234 temporal-paddock combinations, the mean absolute difference in HM estimates between diagonal and W-transects was 106 kg DM/ha, a scale far too small to alter sward or animal management. The presented statistical analysis, together with a supplementary spatial simulation experiment, supported the generality of the findings across the full grass-growing season. With a 51.2% reduction in labour time (1.2 min/ha rather than 2.5 min/ha) across paddocks of various sizes and shapes, the proposed method is likely to facilitate uptake of evidence-based grazing management amongst farmers who currently do not quantify HM at all.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Full text not available from this repository. This manuscript is published under a standard non-Open Access license (© Jones, A.G., Takahashi, T., Lee, M.R.F., and Harris, P., [2025]. Published by Cambridge University Press) and is available here: https://DOI.org/10.1017/S0021859625100282.
Keywords:	Herbage mass, labour saving, livestock agriculture, pasture utilisation, sampling method
Divisions:	Agriculture and Environment (from 1.08.20)
Depositing User:	Miss Anna Cope
Date Deposited:	09 Dec 2025 14:44
Last Modified:	09 Dec 2025 14:44
URI:	https://hau.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/18294

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