On crop blocks, the software allows users to select the "cut and carry" defoliation option with the destination set to "on pastoral blocks", even when the selected animals (e.g., dairy) are not present on those blocks.
This leads to an imbalance in the model, which in turn results in an error that is not immediately obvious.
- Where this occurs the user has selected "cut and carry" defoliation option with the destination set to "on pastoral blocks" for some months
- Then the user selects 80% dairy and 20% cattle as the distribution of the feed.
- But In some months, no dairy animals are on the pastoral blocks.
Temporary solution:
Adding at least 1% dairy ensures that dairy animals are present on at least one pastoral block, preventing the error.
In future:
The Overseer team intend to modify the software to add validation during the mapping process, triggering an error message when an invalid distribution is detected. For example: 'Invalid distribution: Feed cannot be allocated to animals that are not present on pastoral blocks. Please adjust your defoliation allocation.'"