Economic Comparison of
No-Till Annual Crop Rotations to Winter Wheat-Summer Fallow
in Adams County, WA, 2001-2004
Ext. Bul. 1997 - Available for download in pdf format.
The search for a soil-saving no-till annual cropping system that is economically viable in arid eastern Washington is a challenging one. In this bulletin, we present comparisons of the production cost, profitability, and income risk of six no-till annual cropping rotations to conventional tillage winter wheat-summer fallow (WW/SF) during 2001-2004. Yield results are based on an experiment conducted from 1997-2004 at the Ron Jirava farm near Ritzville in Adams County, Washington (See figure 1). The site averages 11.5 inches of annual precipitation. A unique aspect of the 2001-2004 results is that no-till soft white winter wheat is included in rotation with no-till spring crops. Furthermore, this bulletin provides summary economic results for 1997-2004 for two no-till spring cereal rotations that were grown during the entire 8-year period.
In summary, the best no-till rotation at Ritzville, continuous
SWSW, displayed net returns that were statistically equivalent to
WW/SF during 1997-2001, but income risk was higher. These no-till
SWSW results were considerably more promising than previous results
comparing hard red spring wheat (HRSW) to WW/SF. Economic analysis
of experiments at Ralston in Adams County, WA and at the Horse Heaven
Hills in Benton County, WA, indicated that continuous annual no-till
HRSW systems averaged
annual net returns over total costs that were
about $40 per acre below those for WW/SF (Young, D.L. 2002. Economics
of wind erosion control, pp. 90-101. Northwest Columbia Plateau
Wind Erosion/Air Quality Project 2002 Annual Report, Washington
State University, Pullman, WA). Oilseed production that covers the
costs of production in low precipitation areas is challenging (Hinman,
H.R. 2003. Cost of Producing Canola and Mustard Oilseeds in Eastern
Washington and North Central Idaho. EB 1960E. Washington State University,
Pullman, WA).
The potentially promising economics from the first phase of this Ritzville experiment must be interpreted in the context of 1997-2001 precipitation, which was near the long-term average. Precipitation was well below the long-term average during the 2001-2004 period. This bulletin responds to concerns about the long run economic viability of no-till annual cropping systems in typical WW/SF regions of east-central Washington and north-central Oregon by providing economic analysis of a broader set of rotations at the Ritzville cropping system site during dry-to-drought years. The objectives of this study are to report on production cost, profitability, and income risk of six no-till annual cropping systems, including both spring and winter crops, from 2001-2004. Annual crops are compared economically to neighbors’ conventional WW/SF systems. Economic comparisons are also summarized over 1997-2004 for the continuous SWSW and the SWSW/SB spring grain rotations that were continued over the entire eight-year experiment period.
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