Practice Abstract - Research and innovation

Using sensor-based yield measurements on silage machines

What is the real amount of dry-matter-content of the harvested grass, is one of the most asked questions of farmers during harvesting which stays most of the time unanswered. The dry-matter-content is besides protein and feed-value on of the most used characteristics of grass during harvesting in summer and making up the right ration for the herd in the winter. So, even it is important information for a farmer to know, it is still difficult and time-consuming for farmers to get this information by themselves.

There are several sensor-based yield measurements available which can be installed on the silage machines. For example the Pasture Reader. The Pasture Reader measures with ultrasonic technology the height and the density of the grass, this measurement results in the dry-matter-content in kg/ha. The Pasture Reader can be installed on a mower and/or quad. Besides ultrasonic technology also Near-Infra-Red-Spectroscopy (NIRS) is a possibility. NIRS can measure the dry-matter-content of grassland site-specific. NIRS is used on silage machines and therefore used for harvesting processes. With a deviation of 2% the NIRS-system is very accurate on measuring grass yield. The results are send wireless to a server, and software puts all the different data together in just one yield-overview. The NIRS-system can be installed on a loader wagon.



The benefit of utilization of a sensor-based yield measurement can provide farmers real-time information about their grass quality. Therefore making more accurate decisions to improve both yield and quality of silage to increase production of the dairy herd.

Source Project
4D4F Data driven dairy decisions for farmers
Ongoing | 2016-2019
Main funding source
Horizon 2020 (EU Research and Innovation Programme)
Geographical location
United Kingdom
Project details

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