Marie-Pier Beaulieu, with the Conseil Québecois des plantes fourragères (CQPF) and a CFGA collaborator, presented at the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association’s (CFGA) 16th Annual Conference: Greener Horizons: Technological Innovations in Forage and Grassland Management. The conference took place Nov. 18 to 21 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and was organized in partnership with the  New Brunswick Soil and Crop Improvement Association (NBSCIA). 
 
Her presentation shared approaches and tools she uses to assess the quality and  quantity of the yield of grazed pastures and to promote best practices by producers. Using a comparison between mechanical haying and a grazed pasture, she illustrated how she helps producers compare the forage cut versus that which was grazed.  
 
She started with questions about the graze period. How long and how often should we graze? How much time do we wait before bringing animals back? These questions are all answered by understanding pasture yield. 
 
“You need to measure,” was her message as she shared the results of a 2025 study where 15 producers measured the yield from hay fields before moving on to discuss three steps to measure pasture yield. 
 
The first is a plate metre or “grasshopper” to take measurements pre- and post-grazing. The second is with a quadrant pre- and post-grazing to identify what was there and what was consumed. The third is an estimate by Voluntary Dry Matter Intake (VDMI). 
 
Using these three methods, Marie-Pier says it’s important to do a correlation with an exclusion zone to simulate the hay crop using the farmer’s management practices. This, she says, allows the producer to do a better apples-to-apples comparison and make an informed decision by comparing the options. 
 
She then addressed a central producer question: “Do I harvest my hay and feed in the barn, or allow my animals to graze?” Her analysis compared the profitability of three scenarios – buying hay, mechanical harvest and 180 days of pasture grazing – to help producers identify the most advantageous choice. 
 
As she illustrated the math to show the difference in each scenario ,Marie-Pier suggested we don’t often enough look at these kinds of comparisons to ensure we’re looking at the comparative costs between the methods. 
 
She then looked at animal gain as a measure of profitability. Again, she compared grazing to making hay and feeding cattle. Using a demonstration site, she showed how to improve margins using grazing by looking at the revenue per hectare, per kilogram of gain per animal. 
 
She said putting these elements into perspective allows producers to better evaluate needs and plan for the future. 
 
2025 conference recordings   
Would you like to hear all of this presentation? The recordings are available for free to those who registered for the 2025 conference. Online access to recordings of all the conference sessions is also available for purchase. For more information, email [email protected].