PASTURES & SOILS

Satellite mapping features boosted for WA pastures

Pastures from Space satellite mapping technology has been upgraded.

Staff writer

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The Pastures from Space mapping service, a partnership between the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD), Landgate and CSIRO, has been upgraded with new features to measure and compare pasture growth across seasons.

This latest service covers the Western Australian grainbelt and allows producers to access green feed on-offer and pasture growth rates for their property to help manage livestock grazing.

Users can now view cumulative pasture growth rates as an average across the property and compare this to previous years, dating back to 2004.

It can help identify total pasture production, estimate potential stocking rates and examine whole-of-property growth potential for the season.

Farmers can zoom in on a pixel (6.25 hectares) and find all historical and current pasture data for that area.

Agriculture and Food Minister, Alannah MacTiernan, said Pastures from Space was a world-first service when it was developed almost 20 years ago to show estimates of pasture production based on satellite data backed up with rigorous paddock ground-truthing.

"Farmers are adept at incorporating a range of technologies to get the best from their farming systems, and this upgraded service will help them manage their livestock and be even more adaptable to changing seasons," she said.

"The pixel function can focus in on part of a paddock to assess its potential production and the impact of new practices, fertiliser application and new pasture establishment," MacTiernan said.

Lands Minister, John Carey, said the new Pastures from Space web application now opens up nearly two decades worth of Landgate's historical satellite information at a level that farmers and producers have never has access to before, all at the click of a button.

"This will allow them to make the most of good growing seasons and be more resilient through a dry season," Carey said.

The Pastures from Space can be accessed at https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/pastures-from-space-wa

 

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