Accurately assessing the quality of your fresh grass, maize or grass silage is never tricky, so it’s no surprise that most farmers get their nutritionist to do that for them.

However, there’s inevitably a lag between sending off the sample to a lab and getting the results back.

But the arrival of portable near-infra-red (NIR) analysers, like the one at Livestock Event 2014, is now bringing the possibility of forage nutritionists being able to do the job much quicker than in the past. And for big farmers it could well be worth having a unit on the farm to get an immediate idea of forage quality.

See also New phytase from AB Vista

NIR technology has been around in labs since the 1970s but the equipment has always been bulky and eye-wateringly expensive. Now, however, portable devices are popping up everywhere, including one for analysing wheat and barley and at least two for forage analysis.

Doing a test is relatively simple, explained Richard Wynn from Towcester-based Aunir (part of feed giant AB Vista) and involves a screen the size of a mini iPad and a spectrometer. You take small batch of feed, beam the spectrometer at it for a few seconds and then the readings pop up.

The main information it provides is dry matter, ME and crude protein in silage, starch in maize and sugars in fresh grass. What’s probably more important, says Mr Wynn, is the ability to compare the quality of current feed values compared to the ones that were analysed a day or two before.

So the system shows current quality levels, how they compared with recent readings and what the trends are. This traffic-light system is designed to warn of quality problems.

Cost of the unit itself is £5,500. In the first year after purchase you get 50 scans for that and then pay 80p a scan. In the second year you pay a licence fee of £1,000 for updates and calibrations to the system.

Some 80-90% of these units will go to nutritionists, says Mr Wynn, but a fair number of big farmers are expected to be interested, too.

See also All of the news and photos from the Livestock Event 2014