Article summary: August is the moment your grazing plan either sets you up for the spring lift or locks you into catch-up. Using DairyNZ’s Spring Rotation Planner principles as the anchor, this guide shows you how to set opening cover, pick rotation length targets, and adjust when you’re ahead or behind. You’ll also see a simple Pasture.io workflow for building a feed wedge and tracking progress week to week.
For Southern Hemisphere graziers, August is where spring is “close” but not yet reliable. Growth can still fluctuate hard in August and September, which is exactly why measuring and adjusting matters.
If you get your first rotation right, you enter spring with options: pasture that can respond, animals that stay on track, and fewer emergency calls. If you get it wrong, you spend the next 6 to 10 weeks trying to recover.
DairyNZ’s spring management guidance is a good anchor because it treats early spring as a planning period, not a guessing game, using a Spring Rotation Planner to manage rotation speed and pasture cover through the transition to “balance date” (the point where pasture growth matches demand).
Even if you’re running sheep or beef, the principles carry across:
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You’re still managing a feed bank (average cover).
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You’re still trying to match demand to growth.
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You’re still deciding how fast to move around the farm.
What a Spring Rotation Planner really is
At its core, a Spring Rotation Planner is just a commitment to two things:
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A target pasture cover trajectory (what cover you want now, and what cover you want by the time growth catches up).
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A planned change in rotation length (slow now, faster later), so you do not graze too much area too early.
DairyNZ describes it as a way to take the guesswork out of that critical early-spring period and adjust based on weekly measurement.
Step-by-step: build your “first rotation” plan
Step 1: Pick your start point and your “spring balance point”
You need two dates (or two points in time):
Start point: when demand lifts and you must not run the farm too tight.
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Dairy: around planned start of calving (or your early-lactation ramp).
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Sheep: pre-lambing into lambing, or lambing into early lactation depending on your system.
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Beef: calving, peak lactation, or when you’re pushing weaners hard.
Spring balance point: when pasture growth reliably matches (or exceeds) demand. DairyNZ defines balance date exactly this way.
You can think of it as the point where you stop “protecting the bank” and start “managing quality and surplus”.
Step 2: Set your opening cover and your target cover at balance
This is where most feed squeezes are created or prevented.
Opening cover
Treat this as the cover you need at your start point, not the cover you hope you’ll have. DairyNZ makes this distinction explicit for the Spring Rotation Planner.
Target cover at balance
For ryegrass-based systems, DairyNZ notes that setting a balance-date average pasture cover in the 1900–2100 kg DM/ha range generally supports animal performance while maintaining pasture quality.
They also warn that pasture growth can be limited if average cover drops below about 1800–1900 kg DM/ha.
If you’re not on ryegrass, use the principle not the number: set a minimum cover that protects regrowth, then manage your first rotation so you do not dip under it.
Step 3: Choose your “slow now, faster later” rotation targets
Rotation length is your steering wheel.
DairyNZ’s Spring Rotation Planner examples commonly work from a very slow rotation early (for spring-calving herds, often 80–100 days at the start) toward a faster rotation at balance (often around 21–28 days).
You do not need to copy those numbers if you’re sheep or beef. What matters is the pattern:
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Late winter: slower rotation to protect cover and regrowth.
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Early spring: progressively faster rotation as growth accelerates.
Step 4: Turn it into a simple weekly plan
Now you convert targets into something you can run with your team:
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How much area you will graze this week (or per day).
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How much faster you will speed up next week if growth is lifting.
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What you will do if covers move off target.
DairyNZ’s guidance is clear that the planner only works if you monitor cover and adjust rotation accordingly.
Step 5: Track weekly and adjust early (not “when it’s obvious”)
This is the whole game. If you wait until animals are slipping or paddocks are obviously short, you’re already in catch-up.
A simple weekly rhythm:
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Re-measure covers.
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Compare actual vs target.
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Adjust rotation length a little (not a lot), then reassess next week.
If you’re ahead of target covers
Being ahead sounds good, but it can turn into quality problems fast once growth takes off.
Your options are usually:
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Speed up the rotation slightly to keep feed in the quality window.
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Pull out surplus early (conserve as hay/silage, or shift stock classes to tidy).
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Keep residuals sensible so regrowth stays strong (do not “punish” paddocks just because there is grass).
What to do if covers are below target
This is the section that saves seasons.
When covers are behind target, the instinct is to graze more area to “find feed”. That often makes the problem worse by dropping cover even lower and slowing regrowth. DairyNZ explicitly links low average cover with reduced pasture growth.
Instead, aim for three moves:
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Slow the rotation
Graze less area per day (or per week) so the farm has time to rebuild. -
Use supplement to protect the pasture bank
The goal is to reduce grazing pressure so you can hold your rotation length and avoid chewing the farm down. -
Protect residuals
Even in a squeeze, consistently taking paddocks too low costs you twice: less regrowth now, and less total feed later.
Your 5 numbers to check each week
Keep it light. These five are enough to steer the plan:
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Average pasture cover (farm cover)
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Pre-graze covers (or pasture mass) on the next few paddocks
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Post-graze residuals
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Rotation length (actual, not intended)
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Growth vs demand trend (is the gap closing?)
Pasture.io workflow: build a feed wedge and track progress weekly
Here’s a practical way to run the planner without adding admin.
1) Build your feed wedge (10 minutes)
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Update paddock-by-paddock covers (walk, plate meter, satellite, or your preferred method).
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Open your wedge view and rank paddocks by cover so “next to graze” is obvious.
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Mark your target range (your minimum protective cover and your balance-point target).
2) Use the wedge to set the week’s grazing order
You are choosing paddocks based on:
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Cover (what the paddock can afford to lose)
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Residual risk (what you must leave behind)
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Recovery (where the farm needs time)
3) Review weekly: actual vs target
Each week, compare:
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Farm cover trend
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Rotation length trend
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Whether you’re making fewer reactive decisions (because you can see what’s coming)
If the numbers say you’re drifting off target, adjust rotation length first. It’s the simplest lever and usually the cheapest.
The takeaway
August is not about “being perfect”. It’s about picking a realistic first-rotation plan, then measuring weekly so you can correct early.
Do that, and you stop the feed squeeze before it becomes a season-long catch-up.
- The Dedicated Team of Pasture.io, 2025-08-26