Eddie Kenna (Dairy Farm Owner)
Eddie ownes and operates his family dairy farm near The Sisters, Victoria, Australia.
EVI satellite image, which is one of the many indices used on Eddie's Fernlea Park dairy farm.
NDVI satellite image, which is one of the many indices used on Eddie's Fernlea Park dairy farm.
Lush pasture growing on Huw's dairy farm
Could you introduce us to your operations?
We’re on a family dairy farm in western Victoria, running about 1500 stock on 900 hectares.
Along with youngstock, we run some beefies all on dryland.
The farm is really efficient, we do it all with about 4 or 5 farm staff.
What did you previously do before Pasture.io?
In the past, we’d try to do fortnightly drawing up of pasture plans. We would get it done most of the time, but sometimes we were too busy and didn’t.
I was in charge of the rotation of the cows and now I can safely leave it in the hands of some of our farm staff who can pull it up on their computers or phones. They can see where most of the pasture is on the farm, or where paddocks are sitting in the rotation.
The information is there. You can’t really make too many mistakes.
What do you do now you use Pasture.io?
All I need to do is decide the rotation length I want and find the paddocks with the most feed available that’s within the days since grazing.
This means with Pasture.io, I can easily set grazing rotations on both leaf stage and amount of pasture in each paddock.
It means we always know where to graze and why. You know, it is about taking the information and making decisions with confidence.
Who is the driver of Pasture.io on your farm?
Mainly myself and two other guys who are actively across the app and what we’re doing.
What features do you utilise in the Pasture.io app?
We’ve got by no worries and think the programme is going really well. It’s taking the pressure off me a bit more. It’s lifting the responsibility off my shoulders, as the information is there.
There are probably a few features we’re not utilising. But for getting the rotation right, keeping track of grazings, harvests, fert applications and that sort of stuff it’s doing a great job.
I really like how it keeps track and reports back numbers like feed available, days since grazed, and its viewable across the app in different ways.
It’s got that many algorithms under the bonnet that it takes all that manual work out of working it all out. It’s just all there in front of you.
You can just have a quick snapshot at your farm map, and even then, the colour coding that tells you at a quick glance all the darker blue ones have got the most feed and the orange ones with less feed and that sort of thing.
The quick snapshot says, well, these paddocks here are the ones that are going to be coming up shortly for grazing.
How do your staff work with the app?
It really helps that any one of our staff can look at it, know where the feed is, and send the cows there. I don’t have to stress about it or have it organised for them.
Previously, staff would be asking me where to send the cows. I’d be busy, and the animals might get put somewhere less than ideal. It's been a big improvement just in streamlining the daily task of where to graze cows.
Is there anything you’d say to fellow farmers about the app?
Well, it’s saving you the time from going and scoring pastures for a start.
Plus having the information at your fingertips is the biggest thing.
I don’t log in daily, maybe every two days, but someone would be in each day. In many ways its replaced writing on the whiteboard, sending a text message, or leaving a written note.
I’d say the main thing is its time saving and always having the right paddock there to graze.