J.F. CLEWETT¹, J.M. CAVAYE¹, G.M. McKEON², I.J. PARTRIDGE¹ and J.C. SCANLAN³

Department of Primary Industries:
¹Toowoomba,
²Gayndah and
³Charters Towers; Queensland, Australia.

Abstract

Decision support software can assist producers to make decisions that can help to achieve economic and biological sustainability of the grazing system. Interactions between management decisions and the physical, biological and financial attributes of a property are often complex, and thus the ability to adequately describe individual properties as pastoral systems is fundamental to effective decision support. Our paper reviews the benefits and success of computer based decision support packages for pasture management in livestock production, and suggests how teams of process and applied researchers can be formed to provide the scientific basis for future development and transfer of this new technology to industry.