A stochastic model for crop variety selection

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a decision support system (DSS) to support the farmer when selecting a winter wheat variety. In Denmark, the yield characteristic has traditionally been the most important factor in variety selection. The DSS in this paper bases the selection on several characteristics and it takes future uncertain observations and decisions of relevance to the variety decision into account. We describe the decision process in detail and build a simple stochastic optimization model, representing the decision process. For each variety of winter wheat, the model calculates the expected net revenue, which is the expected gross revenue minus the expected costs for treatment of diseases and application of additional fertilization, which is allowed in certain varieties. Finally, we discuss the results from the model.