Despite a cut to funding, the GrassCheck programme is set to run as normal during 2020, with AgriSearch covering the gap in the budget.

GrassCheck records weekly grass growth rates and weather on 39 commercial farms located across NI. Of these, 19 are dairy farms, 17 keep beef and three are sheep units.

The cost of data collecting on the dairy farms is covered under the DAERA Research Challenge Fund which is now in its final year.

However, the cost of collating data on the beef and sheep farms had previously been covered under two DAERA funded projects, that have now expired.

According to Jason Rankin of AgriSearch, data will be collected on these units as normal during 2020, with the costs covered by the levy funded body.

Grass figures will be published on a weekly basis from next week onwards.

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