A new version of Crop Sequence Calculator, a
computer-based management tool developed by ARS scientists, is helping farmers
make better decisions about crop rotation choices in years when rainfall is
scant. Click the image for more information about it.
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Drought Makes Farmers Mind Their Peas and Corn
By Don Comis
May 8, 2008 A continuing drought in parts of the
Northern Plains is pushing more and more farmers in dry areas to rethink their
crop choices. Of the past nine years, only three have been wet years for these
areas.
Some of these farmers put a new CD into their computers earlier this year to
help plan their spring plantings. The CD contains the third--and
latest--version of the Agricultural Research
Services (ARS) Crop Sequence Calculator, which was released in
February.
Scientists at the ARS
Northern
Great Plains Research Laboratory in Mandan, N.D., developed the
Crop Sequence
Calculator. To date, they have sent more than 12,000 copies of the CD free
to farmers, ranchers and educators worldwide.
The calculator is a decision tool that deals with 16 crops, including
barley, flax, sunflower and crops grown to support grazing cattle. Corn was one
of the six new crops added in the latest calculator.
The new calculator, which includes data from the relatively dry years of
2002 through 2005, shows that in dry years, the deep-rooting and water-thirsty
corn grown after peas--which are shallow-rooting and light users of
water--yields better than when grown after thirstier crops.
The new calculator includes data from the previous CD, version 2.2.5,
collected during the relatively wet years of 1998 through 2000. The earlier
version similarly showed that growing the deep-rooting sunflowers after peas
promised the highest sunflower yield. Users can plug in the prices they expect
to get for their crops each year and see predicted gross and net earnings per
acre for various combinations of crops in rotation.
Each version of the Crop Sequence Calculator was based on data from growing
100 combinations of 10 crops, with four crops in common to both versions:
canola, dry pea, spring wheat and sunflower. Now farmers and ranchers can
evaluate those four crops for both wet and dry years.
The new CD can be ordered free online at:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/docs.htm?docid=13698
ARS is the U.S. Department
of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.