DM Tons/Acre Multipliers

Formula: (Multiplier × Avg Height) ÷ 2000

Mixed / Clover Dominant Pasture

Mixed Pasture / Little Legumes

AUD/Acre Calculations

Formula: (DM Tons/A × Multiplier × Utilization%) ÷ Daily Intake

Sheep Days/Acre Calculations

Formula: AUD/A × Sheep Multiplier

🛰️ RAP Calibration

RAP is calibrated for native rangeland. Your irrigated improved pastures produce significantly more than RAP reports. Set a correction factor to scale RAP lbs/acre to match your actual production.

1.0× = use RAP values as-is. Auto-calibrate compares your measurement-based yield estimates to RAP values for the same pastures and dates, then calculates the correction factor.

🐑 NDVI Grazing Detection

Detect grazing events from Sentinel-2 NDVI drops. A sharp drop in greenness between consecutive readings indicates sheep were moved onto the pasture.

Tip grazing (2-3") barely registers. Heavy grazes show as 0.10+ drops. If you get too many false positives, increase the threshold.

🌱 Growth Prediction

Estimates grass height at next graze. When the pivot is running, the grass is growing — water isn't the limiter, temperature + daylength are. Height converts to DM via your Gerrish acre-inch density table.

💡 At 0.30 in/day peak × 500 lbs/ac/inch density = May produces ~2.3 tons/ac. Season total ~7+ tons/ac. Gerrish reference: 4 grazes per 140-day season, 4"→12" in 35 days = 0.23 in/day average. Peak months run faster.

📐 To calibrate: measure residual after pulling sheep off, measure height before next graze, divide gain by rest days. That's your actual growth rate. Compare to prediction and adjust.

🛰️ RAP Satellite Biomass Data

Pull aboveground biomass production (lbs/acre) from the Rangeland Analysis Platform for all pastures with boundaries drawn. Free USDA data — uses your pasture polygons to get 16-day production estimates. Data fills gaps in WaterFlow where field measurements are missing.

⚠️ RAP is calibrated for native rangeland — irrigated improved pasture values may differ from actual, but relative comparisons between pastures & years are still valuable.

🛰️ Sentinel-2 NDVI (High Frequency)

Pull NDVI greenness index from ESA Sentinel-2 satellites — 5-day revisit, 10m resolution, near real-time. Shows grazing events as clear NDVI drops. Free via Copernicus Data Space.

NDVI ranges 0–1 (0 = bare soil, 1 = dense green). Not lbs/acre directly, but excellent for tracking grazing/recovery cycles relative to each other.