GRAZPLAN - DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEMS FOR AUSTRALIAN GRAZING ENTERPRISES .1. OVERVIEW OF THE GRAZPLAN PROJECT, AND A DESCRIPTION OF THE METACCESS AND LAMBALIVE DSS

Effective transfer of new information and technology to farming practi ce is the major goal of the GRAZPLAN project. GRAZPLAN contains a suit e of complementary decision support systems (DSS) that incorporate res ults from research on grazing systems and are now being released throu gh a commercial partner as aids to extension. The computer packages ar e designed to be used in conjunction with local weather and farm data to test the relevance of different management procedures for individua l farms. The main DSS, GrazPlan, can be used to evaluate and optimize long-term management decisions in relation to profitability and sustai nability. It is quite general in its application and modular in struct ure. The Australis-wide database of daily weather records, which drive s this program, is the basis for two smaller DSS, MetAccess and LambAl ive, which are described in this paper. MetAccess is designed to displ ay and analyse daily weather records and provide users with estimates of the probability of specified weather patterns within the range of d ata from a specified locality. LambAlive is designed to predict the ri sk of lamb deaths from bad weather for specified localities and flocks and enables the user to test different procedures that may reduce the se losses. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.