Grasshopper plate meter

kevinm177

Hi lads. Anyone here using the grasshopper to measure grass. Any good or a waste of money. Tks

charolais0153

kevinm177 wrote: »

Hi lads. Anyone here using the grasshopper to measure grass. Any good or a waste of money. Tks

What does it cost

kevinm177

charolais0153 wrote: »

What does it cost

Don't know. They say you can only buy after an on farm demo

Hugh 2

kevinm177 wrote: »

Hi lads. Anyone here using the grasshopper to measure grass. Any good or a waste of money. Tks

Saw it in Moorpark a few years ago and again this year
I would like to know if anyone knows they are "Any good or a waste of money"
Apparently price has gone up to over 1000 euro
No link on their site to simply buy one - still want to do a farm demo before sale

larthehar

Hugh 2 wrote: »

Saw it in Moorpark a few years ago and again this year
I would like to know if anyone knows they are "Any good or a waste of money"
Apparently price has gone up to over 1000 euro
No link on their site to simply buy one - still want to do a farm demo before sale

You can get a lend of one off your teagasc advisor.. try it out..

Buford T. Justice XIX

Hugh 2 wrote: »

Saw it in Moorpark a few years ago and again this year
I would like to know if anyone knows they are "Any good or a waste of money"
Apparently price has gone up to over 1000 euro
No link on their site to simply buy one - still want to do a farm demo before sale

If the cost is too high, they are now covered under TAMSII so can be added in with something else to get up to the minimum spend.

http://www.independent.ie/business/farming/dairy/farmers-can-now-get-grants-for-grass-measuring-equipment-35899556.html

I was at one last year and it looks a good machine and the group I went in with were getting a group discount for the purchase, if that is of any use to you. 4-5 lads together makes it more attractive to do a deal with.

Hugh 2

Anybody using grasshopper platemeter
Heard a local Teagasc group were waiting quite a long while for delivery - I don’t know if they got them
I didn’t see them at ploughing this year - I am sure they were there somewhere
I saw a photo somewhere and it seems to have been redesigned
Anyone here have any experience with them
Thanks

simx

Hugh 2 wrote: »

Anybody using grasshopper platemeter
Heard a local Teagasc group were waiting quite a long while for delivery - I don’t know if they got them
I didn’t see them at ploughing this year - I am sure they were there somewhere
I saw a photo somewhere and it seems to have been redesigned
Anyone here have any experience with them
Thanks

Have one here, service with getting back to customers was terrible but they have pulled their socks up, I bought it the day he did demo but I had my mind made up already really

mahoney_j

simx wrote: »

Have one here, service with getting back to customers was terrible but they have pulled their socks up, I bought it the day he did demo but I had my mind made up already really

Snap same as here ,can’t dault customer service now ,bought mine 6 months ago and well impresed ,will map fields and paddocks and very easy to use and set up.at end of walk all grass covers and wedge can update to pasture base if using it ,ive stuck with Agri net tho .doscounts available if in Tegasc group ,Macra member or if u can get a few of your group to purchase .thumbs up from me anyway

wrangler

We use one here too, it's an accurate way of measuring grass, days ahead etc, ours is very old, doesn't have a digital meter, it has a mechanical meter......in other words it does what it's supposed to'
Only you can decide if that information is worth having and if you're going to act on it

This is the one we use, but grasstec put 500% markup on everything they sell.
Wonder can you get them somewhere else, they're effective and can't be that expensive

https://www.grasstecgroup.com/agri-services/product/manual-folding-plate-meter/

Hard to believe that the cheapest is £330

Conversations 3

Any updates on the use of plate meters?

Anyone using the grasshopper one, Bluetooth farm mapping bells and whistles.

Are they of any use to beef farmers?

emaherx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120243090#Comment_120243090

If you have a large Beef farm are in derogation and need to enter 20+ covers in the year then yes very useful to a Beef farmer, much better than spending all day on hands and knees cutting /weighing grass.

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120243090#Comment_120243090

Put your fist on the ground and if the grass comes just above your fist, that's 500kg DM/HA. Put your other fist on top of the first one - grass just above that is 1,000kg DM/HA. Etc.

Do that in 3-4 different spots around the field/paddock. Repeat in the next field. Your eye will tune in after a few goes.

Join PastureBase (free) and record the figures there every week for a month.

Buy a platemeter after that if you think you need one.

emaherx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120243427#Comment_120243427

That's pretty good advice especially, when we don't know the size of the farm in question.

Lads who are serious about grass measuring will measure the whole farm(or farm block) on the same day every 2 weeks. If you have a lot of paddocks then a platemeter is well worth it, but a Grasshopper is very expensive, the Jenquip EC20 is a cheaper alternative. Both the Grasshopper and EC20 can upload directly to PastureBase. Jenquip also have even cheaper digital models which don't upload directly, but will record and store the whole farmwalk.

Jenquip models:

• EC20 - Bluetooth uploads directly to PastureBase. (don't think it has the mapping features like the Grasshopper)
• EC10 - USB upload to PC, CSV file can be imported to PastureBase
• EC09 - Digital Recording of all paddocks, manual entry to PastureBase or Jenquip Application to generate CSV.
• Jenquip Manual Platemeter can also be upgraded to the above models so not the worst choice for starting off.

I'm not selling Jenquips 😁, PastureBase currently only supports the two brands and I think there is only one Grasshopper model available and it has the most features / biggest price.

emaherx

Also for the very large farm/ measuring service there is the C-Dax. https://www.c-dax.com/measure

This one was mentioned to me by someone recently, it's not supported by PastureBase though. But if it can produce a CSV it could be easily manipulated into a Jenquip CSV Upload.