Farm words glossary

Used in: America, Canada (and older titles in Australia and NZ)

A unit of land area: about 0.405 hectares, or 4,047 square metres. One hectare is about 2.47 acres.

Convert acres and hectares

Used in: Australia, New Zealand

Paying to graze your livestock on someone else's land for a while, usually charged per head per week.

Also called: Custom grazing or pasture lease (America, Canada)

Work out what agistment really costs

Used in: Everywhere

The part of a property that can be ploughed and cropped. When buying, farmers often compare the price per arable or usable hectare (or acre), because steep gullies, scrub, swamp and the house block cost money but grow little.

Also called: Cropping country, tillable acres (America, Canada), usable area

Compare farms by price per usable hectare

Used in: America, Canada

A grazing measure: the forage one mature cow (traditionally about 1,000 lb, with or without a calf) eats in a month. Used to set stocking rates and grazing leases.

Used in: Everywhere

How many kilograms (or pounds) an animal puts on per day: the weight gained between two weighings divided by the days between them. Weigh the same way each time, as how full the stock are changes the scale weight.

Also called: Daily weight gain, growth rate

Weight gain calculator

Used in: America, Canada, Australia

Growing weaned calves on pasture or forage until they are heavy enough to go to a feedlot or be finished.

Used in: Everywhere

A lump sum left to pay at the end of a loan or lease, often used on machinery and vehicle finance. It makes the regular repayments lower, but you pay more interest overall because more of the loan stays owing for longer.

Also called: Residual (Australia), balloon or residual value (NZ, America, Canada)

Work out loan repayments

Used in: Everywhere

The sale price - for stock usually in cents per kg liveweight - that just covers what you paid plus every cost until sale, so you neither make nor lose money. Anything above it is margin.

Also called: Breakeven (America, Canada)

Work out your livestock break-even price

Used in: America, Canada

A grain measure. It is a volume, but grain is traded by a standard weight per bushel that depends on the crop - for example 60 lb for wheat and soybeans, 56 lb for corn.

Used in: Auctions everywhere

A fee, usually a percentage, that the buyer pays the auctioneer on top of the hammer price. Always check the sale terms before you bid.

Auction services

Used in: Australia

How Australian cattle and sheep prices are quoted: cents per kilogram of live weight (lwt), or of carcase weight (cwt) after dressing. Not to be confused with the American cwt (hundredweight).

Also called: $/cwt (America, Canada)

Convert livestock prices

Used in: Australia, NZ (spelled "carcass" in America, Canada)

The weight of an animal after slaughter and dressing (hide, head, feet and organs removed).

Also called: Dressed weight, hot carcass weight

Used in: Everywhere

What it costs to hold grain from harvest until you sell it - storage fees, handling, losses in storage and the interest on the money you would have had at harvest. Storing only pays when the later price beats the harvest price by more than the carry.

Also called: Cost of carry, carrying charge (America, Canada)

Work out if storing pays

Used in: Australia, New Zealand

The cost of trucking grain, hay or livestock from one place to another - usually a rate a km, a tonne or a deck, plus charges for loading, tolls or waiting. Many carriers charge the empty trip back too.

Also called: Freight, trucking or hauling (America, Canada)

Work out the freight on your own quote

Used in: Australia, New Zealand

An on-farm auction of machinery, tools, equipment and sometimes stock - often when a farm is sold, leased out or someone retires.

Also called: Farm auction or estate sale (America, Canada)

Auction services

Used in: America, Canada

In America and Canada, 100 lb (about 45.4 kg). US cattle prices are usually quoted in dollars per cwt. The old British hundredweight is 112 lb.

Convert $/cwt to c/kg

Used in: Everywhere

How much value a machine loses while you own it - roughly the price less what you sell or trade it for, spread over the years you keep it. With interest on the money tied up, insurance and shedding it makes up the ownership cost that you pay whether the machine works or not.

Also called: Loss in value

Work out your machinery cost

Used in: Everywhere

The sale of a whole herd or flock, for example when a farmer retires or changes enterprise.

Used in: Everywhere

Carcase weight divided by live weight, times 100. It varies with the animal, how full it was and how it is processed.

Also called: Yield

Used in: Everywhere

What is left of a feed once all the water is taken out. Feed needs and feed tests are usually given in dry matter, so wet feeds like silage go less far per tonne than hay or grain.

Work out a feed budget

Used in: Australia

A way to compare the feed needs of different stock: roughly what one mature, non-breeding sheep needs to keep its weight. Larger or breeding animals count as several DSE.

Also called: Stock unit (New Zealand), animal unit (America, Canada)

Used in: America, Canada

Young cattle sold to be grown out or fattened further, rather than for slaughter straight away.

Also called: Store cattle (Australia, New Zealand)

Livestock services

Used in: Everywhere

A yard where cattle (or sheep) are fed a grain-based ration for a set number of days to finish them for market.

Used in: Everywhere

The numbers printed on a fertiliser bag: the percentage by weight of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and often sulphur (S). Australian and New Zealand labels usually give P and K as the elements; American and Canadian labels give them as P₂O₅ and K₂O (P = P₂O₅ × 0.436, K = K₂O × 0.830).

Also called: Fertilizer grade (America, Canada)

Work out kg of N, P and K

Used in: Everywhere

The share of the time a machine is actually working the paddock - the rest goes on turns at the headland, overlap, filling and unloading and other stops. Width × speed gives the rate with no stops; field efficiency brings it back to what you really get.

Also called: Effective field capacity (as a share of theoretical)

Work out your work rate

Used in: Everywhere

Cattle that have reached market weight and condition and are ready for processing.

Also called: Prime or fat cattle (Australia, New Zealand), fed cattle (America)

Used in: Australia, New Zealand, Fiji

Owning land outright, with no end date - as opposed to leasehold, where you hold the land for a set term.

Also called: Fee simple (America, Canada)

Real estate services

Used in: Everywhere

The percentage of a grain sample's weight that is water. Drying grain takes water out, so it weighs less - the weight lost is the shrink. Buyers and storage sites set their own receival moisture limits and shrink rules, so check your contract.

Also called: Moisture shrink, drying shrink

Grain moisture shrink calculator

Used in: Everywhere

What a crop or livestock enterprise earns less the costs that come with it (seed, fertiliser, chemicals, feed, fuel, freight, levies) - usually shown a hectare or a head. It leaves out overheads such as rates, wages, depreciation and interest, so it is a way to compare enterprises, not the farm profit.

Also called: GM, enterprise gross margin

Work out a crop gross margin

Used in: Auctions everywhere

The winning bid when the auctioneer's hammer falls - before any buyer's premium, GST, VAT or other charges.

Used in: Australia

The machine that cuts, threshes and cleans grain crops in one pass. In America "header" usually means just the front that cuts the crop.

Also called: Combine or combine harvester (America, Canada, New Zealand)

Machinery services

Used in: Australia, New Zealand, Fiji (and alongside acres in Canada)

A metric unit of land area: 10,000 square metres, or about 2.47 acres. 100 hectares make one square kilometre.

Convert hectares and acres

Used in: Everywhere

A young female bovine that has not yet had a calf (some markets also use it for a cow with her first calf).

Used in: Everywhere

How long a tractor, header or other machine has run, shown on its hour meter. Servicing, fuel use (litres per hour) and the value of used machinery are all measured in engine hours.

Also called: Hour meter reading

Work out fuel use

Used in: Fiji

Land owned by Fiji's indigenous landowning units. It covers most of Fiji and is generally leased (through the iTaukei Land Trust Board) rather than sold.

Real estate services

Used in: Everywhere

Catching what each nozzle on a boom sprays into a measuring jug for the same number of seconds, using clean water. It shows the real litres a minute and L/ha, and finds worn or blocked nozzles before any chemical goes in the tank.

Also called: Catch test, bucket test

Do a jug test with our calculator

Used in: Everywhere

Holding land or a building for a set number of years under a lease, rather than owning it outright.

Used in: Auctions everywhere

One item or group of items sold together at an auction, each with its own lot number.

Used in: Australia, New Zealand

The number of young counted at marking (or branding) for every 100 females joined. Weaning % works the same way with the count at weaning, and scanning % with the young counted at pregnancy scanning.

Also called: Calf branding % or calf crop % (cattle; America, Canada)

Work out your marking %

Used in: Australia, New Zealand, UK

The energy in a feed that an animal can use, usually given in megajoules per kilogram of dry matter (MJ/kg DM) on a feed test. It is used to compare feeds and to work out how much energy stock are getting.

Also called: Often compared with TDN or NE in America and Canada

Compare feed costs per MJ

Used in: Australia, New Zealand

One million litres of water (1,000 cubic metres) - the usual unit for irrigation water and allocations in Australia. One megalitre spread over one hectare is 100 mm deep.

Also called: Acre-foot (America); cubic metres (m³)

Irrigation calculator

Used in: New Zealand

The National Animal Identification and Tracing scheme: cattle and deer are tagged with RFID ear tags and registered, and their movements recorded.

Used in: Australia, New Zealand

How well a liming product neutralises soil acidity compared with pure calcium carbonate (NV 100%). A product with a lower NV has to go on at a higher rate to do the same job; fineness matters too.

Also called: Calcium carbonate equivalent, CCE (America, Canada)

Adjust a lime rate

Used in: Australia

The National Livestock Identification System: cattle carry electronic (RFID) ear tags, and sheep and goats are identified too, so animals can be traced from property to property.

Used in: Australia, New Zealand

A fenced area of a farm used for grazing or crops.

Also called: Field or pasture (America, Canada)

Used in: Australia, New Zealand

When a property or item at auction does not reach the seller's reserve price, so it is not sold under the hammer. Talks with the highest bidder often follow.

Also called: No sale / bought in

Auction services

Used in: Everywhere

How much pasture is in a paddock, usually in kilograms of dry matter per hectare (kg DM/ha). Farmers estimate it by eye, with a pasture ruler or a rising plate meter; the cover left when stock move out is called the residual.

Also called: Herbage mass, feed on offer (FOO)

Plan a grazing rotation

Used in: Everywhere

The splined shaft on a tractor that drives implements like mowers, balers and pumps. Check the PTO speed (540 or 1,000 rpm) matches the implement.

Machinery services

Used in: Auctions everywhere

The lowest price the seller will accept. It is usually kept secret; if bidding does not reach it, the item is passed in.

Used in: Everywhere

Grass or crops cut green and stored airtight (in pits, bunkers or wrapped bales) so they ferment and keep. Haylage is drier than silage; hay is dried in the paddock before baling.

Count your bales

Used in: Australia, New Zealand

A large pastoral property that runs cattle or sheep, often over thousands of hectares.

Also called: Ranch (America, Canada)

Real estate services

Used in: Everywhere

A male bovine castrated when young, usually raised for beef.

Also called: Bullock (for older steers in Australia, NZ and Britain)

Used in: Everywhere

How many animals a piece of land carries over time - for example DSE per hectare in Australia or AUMs per acre in America.

Used in: Australia, New Zealand

The hydraulic arms on the back of a tractor that lift and hold implements. Categories (1 to 4) must match between tractor and implement.

Also called: Three-point hitch (America, Canada)

Used in: Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Canada

A metric tonne is 1,000 kg. A US "short" ton is 2,000 lb (about 907 kg) and a British "long" ton is 2,240 lb (about 1,016 kg).

Also called: Metric ton

Convert tonnes, tons and lb

Used in: Everywhere

The weight in grams of 1,000 seeds. It differs between crops, varieties and seed lots, so it is used to turn a target number of plants into a seeding rate in kg/ha.

Also called: Seed weight, 1,000-kernel weight

Work out a seeding rate

Used in: Australia, New Zealand, Fiji

A light vehicle with an open tray or tub at the back - the everyday farm vehicle.

Also called: Pickup or pickup truck (America, Canada)

Machinery services

Used in: Everywhere

How much spray mix (water plus product) a sprayer puts out per hectare or acre, usually in L/ha or gal/ac. The product label often gives the range to use; calibrating the sprayer checks what it really puts out.

Also called: Carrier volume, spray volume, gallons per acre (America)

Work out a spray tank mix

Used in: Australia, New Zealand

A young animal recently taken off its mother's milk - for cattle usually around 6 to 10 months old.

Also called: Weaned calf or lamb (America, Canada)

Used in: Everywhere

An animal about one to two years old. In Australian cattle markets yearlings are young cattle sold at lighter weights.