Task 5.1 - Inno4Grass

Task 5.1 Adapting the use of grassland tools and developing new grassland methods which can be used to improve grassland management (M1-M36)
Task-lead: Teagasc in collaboration with GLZ, IDELE, APCA, LWK, UGOE, INRA, AWE, AERES, SLU, PULS, WIR, SV, AIA, LRC & CRAPDL

The grazing season and grass growing periods vary greatly across EU member states, from temperate to continental and to Mediterranean types. The level and regime of grassland utilisation (conservation or grazing) can vary widely within countries and between countries. The development and integration of grassland management tools as a way of assisting farmers to manage and improve grassland management is now been researched and developed by many member state organisations (INRA, Teagasc, Wageningen, etc.). The objective of such tools is to increase the awareness of farmers to use grassland more efficiency –i.e. to initiate grazing earlier and later in the growing season. The objective of this task is to ensure a number of existing grassland management tools are made available free of charge to end users. This task will inventory the available grazing and grassland management tools across member states and ensure their availabilityon the Inno4Grass website. To date grazing and silage management tools have been developed and used only on ad hoc basis with very little knowledge disseminated to farmers on their appropriateness for use of their importance. This task will ensure that grassland farmers are well informed on the appropriateness of what grassland tools to use and when. This will be done by advertising these tools on the IMS and by informing advisory services and technical schools in each country of the consortium. Very important grassland tools for different seasons to be tested and upgraded are:

• Grassland tools for Spring -Spring Rotation planner (Ireland), Herbe L’Avenir (France) www.vallprognos.se (Sweden),webGRAS (South Tyrol/Italy)
• Grassland tools for Mid-Summer - Grass wedge (Ireland, the Netherlands), Paturin (France)
• Grassland tools for Autumn - Autumn rotation planner (Ireland).