Winter Wheat Cropping and Tillage Systems
Abstract
In the southern Great Plains, wheat is a multiple use crop. It may be produced either for grain-only, forage-only, or as a dual-purpose crop for both forage and grain. Research was conducted to determine the most economical production system across five cropping alternatives and two tillage methods for four farm sizes. The five cropping alternatives included: (1) wheat seeded in early September for forage-only; (2) wheat seeded in early September for forage-only with foxtail millet seeded as a summer forage double crop; (3) wheat seeded in early September for dual-purpose (forage plus grain); (4) wheat seeded in late September for dual-purpose (forage plus grain); and (5) wheat seeded in mid October for grain-only. The two tillage methods included conventional-till and no-till. The four farm sizes were 320, 640, 1,280, and 2,560-acres. A total of forty enterprise budgets were generated to determine the most economical production system. It was found that an early September dual-purpose conventional-till system is the most economical of the ten production systems with the late September dual-purpose conventional-till system being the second most economical. The grain-only and wheat forage-only systems were the less economical with the October grain-only no-till treatment being the least economical with a $0.31 per pound of stocker gain fall-winter forage calculation. Under a stocker steer budget fall-winter forage calculation, the early September forage-only conventional-till system was the least economical production system for a 1,280 and 2,560-acre farm. The conventional-till systems were found to be more economical for the dual-purpose and grain-only systems, while the no-till systems were more economical for the two forage-only systems. Farm size does matter when determining net returns but not necessarily when determining production or tillage systems.
Collections
- OSU Theses [15752]