Implementation of Plantain in OverseerFM

Have pasture quality differences between plantain and grass/clover pasture been considered? Did the FRNL project provide data which could be used to update the Overseer pasture quality database?

The FRNL team might be able to add further information. They have collated a large database. From this, we concluded that there was no consistent difference in N concentration between standard and plantain-rich pasture, even though the starting hypothesis in FRNL was that there would be a difference. Analysis of the database did pick up the difference in WSC, hence we have captured that in our partitioning scalar. There is potential to use the FRNL database to update the OvS database with other quality parameters (P, K, etc for example).

Thanks Mark. I was thinking more in terms of ME differences which are an important driver of intake in Overseer, which in turn has a big impact on N excretion.

From the Tararua plantain rollout project sampling over the last 18 months there is no evidence of significant ME differences for grass-based pastures with plantain in them. Plantain-clover mixes are a different story, as one might expect.

Yeah, sorry. I missed the point. The database was unable to show consistent differences in ME between standard pasture and plantain-rich pasture

Barenbrug's comments are in the attached.