Economic feasibility of site-specific optical reflectance technology as an alternative strategy for managing nitrogen applications to winter wheat

Abstract

Scope and Method of Study: This dissertation is comprised of three essays, each of which examines the economics of plant-based precision nitrogen fertilizer application technologies relative to conventional fertilizer application methods for winter wheat. Partial budgeting techniques are used in all three essays to determine the net returns to nitrogen fertilizer and fertilizer application expenses for a number of precision systems and conventional systems.

Findings and Conclusions: In the first essay, it was found that a precise in season fertilizer application system would be worth approximately $8 to $10 per acre to a wheat farm producer operating in the southern Plains, depending upon location. A perfect precision system, then, would have to be developed and offered to farm producers for less than that amount in order for them to adopt it into their production practices. Results from the second essay suggest that two individual site-specific precision systems were not unambiguously more profitable than conventional methods. Results also indicate that the precision systems evaluated could be improved upon so as to increase their profitability relative to conventional methods. In the third essay, results suggest that the site-specific, perfect information precision system was approximately $7 more profitable than that of convention methods. It was pointed out that the perfect information system is unlikely in practice, and therefore the site-specific system was essentially breakeven with conventional methods. Contrasting the first essay results with the results found in the last two essays, it was concluded that the precision systems that were tested against the conventions could be improved to enhance their profitability.