Southwest Victoria green drought: Chloe Brown on paddock management

Modern tech helped to remedy an age old problem for Chloe Brown — how to feed cattle through a green drought.

Proper paddock planning prevents poor pasture performance – it’s an agri twist on an old army maxim that Chloe Brown operates by.

The southwest Victorian farmer recently addressed the Gardiner Foundation’s annual lunch to discuss how the Pasture Smarts app had eased their way through the green drought.

Chloe said the tool helped to manage pasture on their Kirkstall farm by centralising grazing records and estimating pasture availability.

It uses satellite technology and graphic imaging to work out how to best segment and graze farmland.

“It’s another tool in my toolbox around decision making. It helps with questions like: ‘Do I split this paddock into four or into three?’,” she said.

“For us it has added to the security around making decisions. It’s not perfect and the people that developed it acknowledge it’s not perfect, but it’s helped us at a time when the green drought has thrown us a curve ball.”

Chloe Smith addresses the Gardiner Foundation.

Located northwest of Warrnambool, Chloe’s Kirkstall farm started using the Pasture Smarts app this year — a program bankrolled by the Gardiner Foundation as well as agriculture departments across several states.

The app monitors how much feed is available, herd and grazing rotations, the amount of supplementary feed used, the amount of forage conserved in each paddock as well as paddocks with recent applications of fertiliser, herbicide or pesticide.

“Before we used the app, we’d go around the paddocks and have a bit of guess, just like farmers have done forever,” she said.

“This year especially, we held off grazing because we had such a late start to the season.

“Using the Pasture Smarts data helped with working out the best grazing strategy to the point where we’re going to have silage, we’re going to have a good season (in terms of fodder yield). We’re still going to be down and have less homegrown feed.”

Chloe said while Pasture Smarts helped to avert a 2024 season failure, it was not a silver bullet.

“We followed the data, didn’t get the cattle on the grass too early before the paddocks were ready. But like any information, you have to follow it every day, you can’t just dip in and out of it and hope for the best.”