SEPATOU: a Decision Support System for the Management of Rotational Grazing in a Dairy Production

The paper presents the simulator SEPATOU that can reproduce the day-to-day dynamics of two interactive systems: the decision system representing the dairy farmer's management behavior and the biophysical system that encompasses the herbage production, consumption and transformation into milk. The activities to be managed concern the type and amount of conserved feed, where to fertilize and how much, the choice of fields to cut and, most importantly, what field to graze next. Typically, SEPATOU is designed to be used by extension services and farming system scientists. It provides a flexible environment through which learning about a satisfying management strategy of a given dairy production system can take place by iterating simulation and evaluation of tentative ones.