Optimal rotations with considerations for corn in southern Manitoba
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Date
2018
Authors
Sakulanda, Hazel
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Abstract
Corn is the largest cereal crop in the world. An effective way of demonstrating the potential of corn (or any crop) is to illustrate the potential economic gains from growing it. The top five crops by seeded area in southern Manitoba are canola, soybeans, spring wheat, grain corn and oats. The economic returns from these crops grown in rotation are the focus of this study. This study uses relative yield response values which are a measure of the impact that one crop has on the yield of next seeded crop. All of the possible rotations from the 5 top crops are analyzed to see what the average returns are at the end of the rotation. Returns using 5 year average yields, adjusted by the estimated impacts of previous crops, from all of the possible crop sequences of the top five crops in southern Manitoba are calculated and ranked to determine the top 10 performing rotations. Corn is observed to be present in all of the top 10 rotations. After identifying these optimal rotations, historical prices are applied to the budgets to see if the rotation ranks survived over time as prices varied. The top rotation, corn and soybeans in a two year rotation, remains optimal for all but three years in the 13 examined. Continuous cropping, even with corn, is significantly less profitable than crops grown in rotation. The data used in this study is generally available and therefore the economic model can be developed into user friendly extension tool that could be used by farmers.
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Keywords
Optimal rotations, Manitoba, Price shock