North
West New York
Dairy, Livestock & Field Crops
Team
Dairy, Livestock & Field Crops
Team
By: John Hanchar
Some describe a visit to August’s Empire Farm Days as a “kick the tires” opportunity -- an opportunity to learn about farm machinery, equipment, and technology up close. If you are planning a visit to Empire Farm Days this August, then you might want to focus some of your “kick the tires” efforts learning about zone tillage technology.
Zone tillage is a system that some farm business owners find to be a viable system for achieving desired financial results in the face of challenging environmental rules and changing output input price relationships – consider for example, NYS’ Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) process, and changing relationships among grain and oilseed crop prices and fuel prices. This article reports some highlights from Cox, Hanchar, Cherney, van Es, Atkins. 2009. “Agronomics and Economics of Zone Tillage Depth for Corn Silage Production. What’s Cropping Up? 19(2, March April). Please visit the NWNY Program website under “AgFocus” to learn more. Cox and his colleagues designed their work to help determine the optimum zone tillage depth for corn silage production.
One factor that farm business owners consider when making decisions regarding possible changes is the expected change in profit. Profit equals the total value of production (goods and services produced) minus the costs of resources used in production. The expected change in profit equals the expected change in the value of production minus the expected change in costs. Partial budgeting was used to develop the estimates reported in Table 1.
| Items | Proposed
versus Current |
|
| 7 inch versus 14 inch | 0 inch versus 14 inch | |
| Changes in Total Value of Production | Dollars
per Acre |
|
| Change in production due to labor freed up | 0.60 |
1.20 |
| Change in the value of corn silage production | (46.00) |
|
| Expected Change in Total Value of Production (A) | 0.60 |
(44.80) |
| Changes in Costs | ||
| Change in fuel expense _ tractor | (2.38) |
(4.76) |
| Change in repair & maintenance expense _ tractor | (0.39) |
(0.77) |
| Change in repair & maintenance expense _ zone builder | (0.35) |
(1.50) |
| Change in repair & maintenance expense _ aerway | (0.48) |
(0.96) |
| Change in ownership costs _ zone builder | (1.14) |
|
| Change in forage harvesting costs due to lower yield | (5.85) |
|
| Expected Change in Costs (B) | (3.60) |
(14.98) |
| Expected Change in Profit = (A) minus (B) | 4.20 |
(29.82) |
Note: Values in ( )’s are negative.
For the change to a 7 inch depth zone building pass from 14 inches, the expected increase in profit of approximately $4 per acre results from change in the value of production and changes in costs. The changes are due to a decrease in time needed to make the zone till pass at 7 inches when compared to 14 inches. Tractor fuel, and repair and maintenance expenses, and equipment repair and maintenance expenses decline.
For the 0 inch versus 14 inch analysis, the expected decrease in profit of about $30 per acre results from an increase and decrease in the value of production, and decreases in costs. Changes are due to a decrease in time needed to make the tillage pass without the zone builder, and a decrease in the value of corn silage production due to an expected decline in yield.
Based upon the results of their work, Cox and his group conclude “ … that an intermediate zone tillage depth of 7 inches was optimum on a dairy farm in western NY with silt loam soils with thick fragipans at the 16 to 20 inch depth. We recommend that dairy producers on these soils experiment with reducing their zone tillage depth from 14 to 7 inches to reduce labor, fuel, and repair and maintenance costs, because silage yields remained similar in this study. We recommend that dairy producers on these soils do not eliminate zone tillage (the zone building pass), despite savings in labor, fuel, and repair and maintenance costs, because of reductions in silage yield and N uptake of corn.”
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