Get reliable rangeland science

Available technology now allows individual animals to be identified and weighed whenever they access water, data to be telemetered to a remote computer, and animals to be automatically drafted on the basis of weight or other individualistic criteria. The application of spatial pasture growth models to seasonal risk assessment (eg PaddockGRASP) allows current and future stocking rates to be assessed in an explicit risk management framework, providing a new capacity to assist with the matching of forage demand and forage supply. The combination of these technologies potentially provides rangeland pastoralists with an unprecedented capacity to manage for both economic and environmental outcomes. The capacity to produce frequent and reliable estimates of live weight also provides a new tool for the development of models linking pasture growth and animal production.