The value of conducting on-farm field trials using precision agriculture technology: a theory and simulations
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The value of conducting on‑farm field trials using precision agriculture technology: a theory and simulations David S. Bullock1 · Taro Mieno2 · Jaeseok Hwang1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The objectives of this article are to examine the practicality of on-farm precision experiments to sufficiently lower the costs of acquiring the information necessary to make sitespecific nitrogen (N) fertilizer management profitable, and to examine the potential value of on-farm precision experiments in uniform rate N fertilizer management. After presenting a simple economic model as theoretical background, two hypotheses are tested. Hypothesis 1 is that if on-farm precision experiments are conducted over sufficiently many growing seasons on a “flat and black” central Illinois cornfield, the information gained can be used to make site-specific N application management more profitable than uniform rate N application management. Hypothesis 2 is that conducting on-farm precision experiments on that field for only a few years will provide information that can increase profits for a farmer who otherwise would follow the N application rate recommendation of the Maximum Return to Nitrogen project. Monte Carlo simulations rejected Hypothesis 1, but failed to reject Hypothesis 2. On the modeled central Illinois field, which was characterized by relatively little spatial heterogeneity, even fifteen years of on-farm precision experiments did not provide enough information to make using site-specific N management profitable. But the information gleaned from just a few years of on-farm precision experiments provided very profitable information to improve spatially uniform N rate management. Keywords On-farm precision experiments · Value of information · Nitrogen management Site-specific input application technology (SST) has been commercially available for two decades. Using truly space-age methods to customize input management to small parts of farm fields was then and still is exciting. However, actual adoption of SST remains far below the expectations expressed in the late 1990s by enthusiastic farmers, agricultural scientists, farm equipment dealers, and popular news media. Addressing this subject amidst the early excitement, Bullock et al. (1998, 2002), and Bullock and Bullock (2000) discussed how the economic complementarity between SST and information about yield response made * David S. Bullock [email protected] 1
Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
2
Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nebraska Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68583, USA
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Precision Agriculture
profitable use of SST unlikely without much more information about yield response than was then available. The economic complementarity of SST equipment and yield response information has important research implications and, ultimately, important practical implications, which provide both bad and potentially good news abou
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