Almost one hundred forage specialists from around the world gave generously of their time and experience to develop the first version of this tool, published by CSIRO, Australia 2005.

That version called SOFT, proved to be a valuable tool for researchers, teachers and for pasture and forage users.

This second edition is a comprehensive update of the tool, which incorporates redesign and rewrite of all fact sheets, additional species and a recalibration of the selection tool.

The extensive photo library has also been updated

A key feature of the new edition is an update of the underlying technology platform to enable its distribution on mobile devices and the web without any additional software or plug-ins.

Mathew Taylor and Damian Barnier (Identic Pty Ltd) for adaptation of the Lucid^TM and Fact Sheet Fusion^TM v2 platforms to the specific needs of the Tropical Forages database, and software development advice.