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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #71725
Title: ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY IN YIELD VARIABILITY WITHIN A CENTRAL IOWA FIELD

Author
item Colvin, Thomas
item Karlen, Douglas

Submitted to: International Conference on Precision Agriculture Abstracts & Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/26/1996
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: One important reason for adopting precision farming techniques and technologies will be the economic return that can be generated. If we truly have precision, then there should also be environmental benefits which may also represent an economic opportunity, but that is not considered in the current project. This study was designed to explore the magnitude of potential net return that may exist and might be captured by the adoption of precision farming on one field. Partial budgets were generated for seven years of historical yields on 224 locations within the field. At least 30% of the locations were found to have negative returns every year. Unfortunately, the locations with negative returns were not always in the same place in different years. Five to ten percent of the locations were found to have negative returns that were so large that they could not have been farmed. The net returns at those locations did not even cover the fixed costs of land and machinery. The application of precision farming concepts is new enough that it will be difficult to generalize the results of the project to other fields at this time. More analyses will be needed to determine underlying management principles.