Monitoring pasture productivity in New Zealand—an investigation using NOAA-11 AVHRR data and dairy farm milk fat production

Abstract

A major issue when using NOAA AVHRR derived NDVI data in terrestrial applications is the acquisition of sufficient ground information lo relate to NDVI. The usual method of acquiring pasture productivity ground data is from pasture-cuts beneath movable cages. In this study, milk fat production data collected daily from dairy farms in three 25 km² study sites in New Zealand is used as a surrogate for pasture production. The results show a probable causal relation between the AVHRR-derived NDVI and milk fat production and identify a need to use farm production models to further quantify the relationship. Our aim is to use successive years NOAA AVHRR data to monitor trends in pasture and milk fat production.