Needing to purchase excess feed, due to unfavourable weather or inefficient pasture management, can cut into your profitability. Feed is often one of the largest on-farm costs, especially with volatile global prices. Limited tools to optimise pasture use and feed efficiency leave farmers more exposed to rising costs and poor seasons.
By understanding the levers that help you optimise pasture and feed base efficiency, you can better control your farm input costs. Optimising pasture use and feed efficiency also allows you to better manage Tasmania’s complex soil types and highly variable rainfall, which is expected to intensify as the climate changes. Improving feed base management enables you to respond more flexibly to seasonal and market changes, maintaining both your margins and resilience.
Reduce your cost of metabolisable energy per head through better utilisation of home-grown feed. This can improve margins per head over time and on-farm resilience.
A free phone app using satellite data to automatically map field boundaries and use NDVI to remotely identify paddock problem areas, like those related to soil erosion or poor drainage. It also provides geolocated notes for in-field scouting and offers weather data (forecasts, growing degree-days, and precipitation) for better planning
Free
Platform provides current and historical satellite imagery showing NDVI, cloud cover.
Autozones pasture with suggested variable rate fertilizer requirements which is compatible with major farm machinery systems, decreases input costs.
"AUD 395 / year (Advanced plan)
AUD 795 / year (Pro plan)"
Farmdeck offers a farm management solution with a complete suite of sensors to monitor rainfall, soil moisture, track livestock movement to inform grazing and pasture management decisions.
Free (app) + pay for sensors
The feed wedge provides a visual representation of pasture yield over time and predicts yield in future weeks to help farmers make better grazing decisions.
AUD 1,099 / year (Fundamental plan) + add-ons $3.99/ha or $9.48/ha
A free phone app to quantify the percent canopy cover of live green vegetation for any agricultural crop, turf, or grassland based on downward-facing photos taken with your mobile device.
Free
Uses AI and a smartphone camera to estimate pasture biomass in seconds—no sensors or satellites needed. Offers a quick, low-cost way to assess feed availability and make fast grazing decisions.
N/A (quote required)
Primary Insights’ Sentek probes measure soil moisture, temperature and fertiliser movement.
Data feeds into Swan Systems’ platform to create a 7-day irrigation schedule, now enhanced with weather forecasts and nutrient tracking to support broader water and pasture decisions.
~AUD 2,000–5,000+ (hardware + annual subscription)
A SWAT box can be mounted on a larger vehicle, driven over an area to generate soil and water-related map layers.
Soil maps help identify where crop yield is limited and guide variable-rate applications.
~AUD 25 – 40 per ha
Wireless in-field sensors monitor real-time soil moisture and temperature and data is transmitted via cellular or satellite networks and integrated with decision support tools.
Suited to broadacre and pasture systems, supporting irrigation scheduling without the need for complex infrastructure.
~AUD 1,000 – 2,000 per sensor + ~AUD 200 – 400 / year (data plan)
A free, mobile‑accessible platform for dairy farmers that merges local weather data, rainfall, evapotranspiration, and farm irrigation inputs to generate real‑time water budgets and guide optimal irrigation timing and amounts
Free
The Dairymaster feeder automatically dispenses feed to cows as they are being milked, with system automatically tailoring feeding to each cow’s specific needs which greatly reduces feed waste.
N/A (quote required)
The Cosmix system recognizes each cow and tailors the concentrate amount to the cow.
The integration with Lely’s feed management system also allows insights into feeding behaviour.
N/A (quote required)
Hay Humidity Monitor simplifies hay baling. Receive instant alerts when conditions are ideal, with easy-to-use technology that ensures more efficient bailing. $1,900 per unit (including freight).
$1,900 per unit
HAYTECH is a wireless monitoring system with probes that measure real-time temperature of hay bales and send mobile alerts if temperatures rise to unsafe levels, preventing the loss of hay due to fires and damage.
"~$5,250–$5,775 for base kit (4G solar base + 20 probes)
$1,450 for 10-probe add-on"
