Crop yield responses and economic optima in fertilizer use at various locations in the Prairies, 1959-68
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Date
1971
Authors
Fulton, Craig Victor
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Abstract
In the period 1945 to 1969, fertilizer sales in Canada increased from 575,107 tons to 1,909,496 tons, an increase of 332 per cent for the twenty-five year period. Because of this large increase in the use of fertilizer, there is an increasing need for more information on the physical and economic relationships involved in the optimum use of fertilizer. With this kind on information, the farmer can then decide how much fertilizer to use. With this goal in mind, the objectives of this study were: 1. To determine the yield response to varying levels and combinations of N and P2O5 for the crops, wheat, oats, barley and rye seeded on summerfallow and stubble, at various locations in the Prairie Provinces, for the years 1959 to 1968. 2. To derive the least cost combinations for specified crop yields and the maximum profit positions for selected crop prices, and to compare these economic optima among locations, among years at given locations and among the different crops in a given year and location. The data used in this study were the results of fertilizer experiments in cereals that were conducted in the Prairie Provinces and the Peace River area of British Columbia in the ten year period, 1959 to 1968... The regression-equation approach not only expresses the physical relationships between fertilizer levels and yields, but it also permits one to determine the economic optima in fertilizer use. The fertilizer-input crop -output relationships, however, apply to particular soils for certain years; production surfaces obtained under other rainfall and soil conditions can be expected to differ from those obtained in the experiments reported.