7 - 2020 Soybean Management Field Days - Precision Ag Technology: What are the Economics?

Nebraska Soybean Board & Nebraska Extension Author

09/26/2020 Added

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Precision Ag Technology: What are the Economics? - Taro Mieno, UNL Department of Ag Economics Assistant Professor discusses on-farm trials to find the best site-specific seed rate.

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[00:00:00.503](bright music)
[00:00:07.140]Hi, I'm Taro Mieno.
[00:00:08.240]I'm an assistant professor at the agriculture economics
[00:00:11.010]at the university of Nebraska Lincoln.
[00:00:13.130]Today I'm going to talk about
[00:00:14.470]how we may be able to use our on farm
[00:00:17.639]randomized seed rate experiments to identify
[00:00:21.743]optimal seed rate decisions
[00:00:23.260]viable rate seed rate decision.
[00:00:25.350]Okay, so here is the map of target seed rates
[00:00:29.980]randomized target seed rates.
[00:00:31.500]It ranges from 60 to 140, as you can see,
[00:00:35.520]the seed rates are randomized across the field.
[00:00:38.740]right here is the resulting yield
[00:00:41.800]soybean yield.
[00:00:43.750]So as you can see,
[00:00:44.720]the upper half of the field is high yielding,
[00:00:47.950]and relatively speaking
[00:00:49.430]the lower part of the field is less,
[00:00:53.968]is not as as productive as the upper part of the field.
[00:00:59.767]So the soybean yield ranges from 20 to 70.
[00:01:02.860]And the most productive part is again is at the upper half,
[00:01:06.180]and you can see that 70 to 60 bushels per acre
[00:01:10.130]on the upper part of the field.
[00:01:12.360]Okay, here is the target seed rate
[00:01:15.308]and soybean yield side by side
[00:01:17.920]it's a little bit hard to get anything away
[00:01:20.330]from just from just looking at two maps here, but
[00:01:27.520]one thing you can see here is that
[00:01:29.560]the upper right corner,
[00:01:31.760]even though low seed rates
[00:01:35.280]were applied on the upper right part of the field,
[00:01:41.140]you can still see that yield is very high.
[00:01:45.760]So you would imagine that the yield response
[00:01:48.560]in that part is not very high.
[00:01:50.790]Okay, so after collecting target seed rates
[00:01:53.570]and the soybean yield data across the field,
[00:01:57.090]we can do some statistical analysis
[00:01:59.120]and we can identify how yield is responding
[00:02:02.650]to seed rate across the field.
[00:02:04.670]Okay, so this is yield response
[00:02:06.590]to seed rate bushels per acre, per a thousand seeds
[00:02:10.030]so for example, 0.4 means that if you increase
[00:02:14.210]seed rate by 1000 seeds per acre,
[00:02:17.670]then you would have 0.4 bushel per acre boost in your yield.
[00:02:23.010]So you can see that middle part
[00:02:24.720]of the field is very responsive to seed rate
[00:02:27.580]but upper lower left corner and upper right corner
[00:02:30.810]you can see that soybean yield is not responding
[00:02:35.060]to seed rate very much.
[00:02:37.550]Okay so here is the map.
[00:02:41.612]Well, here are the maps of soybean yield
[00:02:43.130]and yield response to the seed rates side by side.
[00:02:46.010]One thing you can take away from these maps,
[00:02:50.074]that it's not necessarily
[00:02:52.430]that the high yielding parts are responsive to seed rate.
[00:03:00.570]And let's try to understand why we see differential
[00:03:05.342]yield responses to seed rates across the field.
[00:03:09.570]So here is the map of yield response
[00:03:11.470]to seed rate and soil type.
[00:03:14.640]By comparing these two maps,
[00:03:19.100]there's no,
[00:03:20.160]it doesn't seem to be any significant correlation
[00:03:23.400]or relationship between soil type and yield response.
[00:03:26.260]So, we are inconclusive about
[00:03:29.610]the impact of soil type on yield response to to seed rate.
[00:03:33.660]Here is the map of yield response to seed rate
[00:03:36.060]and elevation, so again,
[00:03:38.310]it's hard to see what is causing
[00:03:41.600]differential yield response to seed rate.
[00:03:43.668]There does not seem to be any significant correlation
[00:03:47.220]between elevation and yield response to seed rate.
[00:03:50.070]So in fact, we were not able to find
[00:03:53.330]out exactly why we see differential yield responses
[00:03:58.090]to seed rate in this field.
[00:04:01.740]Okay,
[00:04:02.573]so after identifying differential responses
[00:04:07.490]or responses to seed rate
[00:04:10.400]based on solving price of $9
[00:04:13.610]per bushel and seed price
[00:04:16.090]cost of $0.35 per 1000 seeds
[00:04:20.200]we can identify the economically
[00:04:22.580]site-specific economically optimal seed rate.
[00:04:25.160]And here is the map of economically optimal seed rates.
[00:04:28.050]It ranges from 60 to 140,
[00:04:31.860]and the lower bottom part
[00:04:35.030]and upper right corner,
[00:04:36.390]you can see the optimal seed rate
[00:04:40.810]is 60,000 seeds per acre,
[00:04:44.930]but for the most part of the field 140K seed rate,
[00:04:51.022]the economically optimal seed rates.
[00:04:54.350]okay, let's do economic analysis on this field.
[00:04:57.410]So the grower who would have chosen 120K seeds per acre,
[00:05:02.370]if it were not for this week's experiment,
[00:05:04.240]and we have got to compare
[00:05:05.984]that decision the grower would have made
[00:05:07.460]to the economically optimal seed rates we identified
[00:05:10.960]which range from 60 to 140.
[00:05:13.320]And we assume that soybean price is $9 per bushel
[00:05:16.240]and seed price is $0.35 per 1000 seeds
[00:05:21.150]Okay,
[00:05:22.140]Then we put those.
[00:05:23.650]If the grower doesn't have viable rate application system,
[00:05:28.770]then that would cost $5 per acre.
[00:05:32.870]Okay, so the site-specific optimal rates
[00:05:35.640]would have made $15 per acre more
[00:05:39.540]or about $10 per acre more,
[00:05:42.220]if you use viable rate application services.
[00:05:46.326]Okay. So the, this economic gain comes from two factors.
[00:05:49.280]The first one is to save seed costs
[00:05:51.580]in the area where yield does not respond
[00:05:53.710]to an increase in the seed rate.
[00:05:55.290]That's the lower bottom, lower left corner
[00:05:58.600]of the field and the upper right corner of the field.
[00:06:01.100]The farmer would have the grower would have applied 120K
[00:06:05.260]per acre, but the economically optimal rate
[00:06:07.380]is actually 60,000 seeds per acre.
[00:06:13.463]And the second factor is that
[00:06:14.780]it will be economically optimal to plant more seeds
[00:06:19.220]in most parts of the field.
[00:06:21.220]the economically optimal rate was 140,000 seeds
[00:06:25.180]per acre for the most parts of the field,
[00:06:29.130]but the grower would have chosen 120,000 seeds per acre.
[00:06:34.540]And the grower might want to try even higher rates
[00:06:37.750]and other experiments because 140,000 seeds
[00:06:41.130]per acre was the maximum rate that we tried.
[00:06:43.560]And we identified that rate as the economical optimal.
[00:06:46.910]So it may be that even higher rate could make
[00:06:51.020]the grower more money
[00:06:54.260]On caveats.
[00:06:55.300]So this is only one year of data.
[00:06:57.430]So we didn't
[00:06:58.600]we were not able to take into account weather uncertainty.
[00:07:01.400]So if we run another experiment in a different year
[00:07:04.930]we may have, we may have had a different result.
[00:07:09.603]And we were not able to identify the underlying causes
[00:07:13.430]of the differential responses to seed rates.
[00:07:16.580]So it may be a good idea to talk
[00:07:18.330]with a specialist, your consultant
[00:07:22.856]or your consultant
[00:07:24.700]to understand why some parts of
[00:07:26.000]the fields are more responsive
[00:07:27.910]to seed rates than other parts.
[00:07:29.570]And that may be able to help you to
[00:07:34.040]identify the strategies to improve your yield.
[00:07:38.620]Okay, so take home points.
[00:07:40.170]On farm randomized experiments of seed rates
[00:07:43.280]can help growers better understand how yield responds
[00:07:48.025]to seed rate sites-specifically.
[00:07:50.170]And it will also help you to find out whether growers
[00:07:53.990]are over applying or under applying seeds on average.
[00:07:58.460]Okay,
[00:07:59.880]and further it will let you find
[00:08:01.950]the site-specific economically optimal seed rates
[00:08:04.510]and running experiment on farm experiments
[00:08:07.870]like this, may benefit you
[00:08:12.080]by a sizable margin.

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7 - 2020 Soybean Management Field Days - Precision Ag Technology: What are the Economics?

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