Profitability of grazing no‐till established winter cereal pasture and summer cover crops

Abstract

AbstractNo‐till establishment (NT) and cover crops (CC) are two agricultural practices promoted to reduce externalities with clean‐till (CT) and fallow practices, better soil health, and improve producer profitability. Some research reports economic value for NT on water‐limited cropland acres, helping to advance farmer adoption; however, economic research associated with CC is limited. This study determined the economics of NT and CC for small grain pasture grazing systems in the Southern Great Plains (SGP). Data from a 5‐year, completely randomized design (CRD) grazing experiment were used in mixed‐effects regression models to estimate the effects of establishment method (CT and NT) and either summer fallow (SF) or summer CC on average daily gain (ADG), steer grazing days (SGD), and total gain (TG) ha−1. Enterprise budgeting was used to determine the relative net benefits of CTSF, NTSF, CTCC, and NTCC systems. Winter TG was the same for CTSF and NTSF systems; however, the NTSF realized 39 and 21 kg TG ha−1 more (p ≤ 0.01) than the CTCC and NTCC systems, respectively. TG on CC was 11 kg ha−1 greater (p ≤ 0.01) for NT than CT. NT realized lower costs for machinery labor and fuel than CT, giving it an economic advantage; however, revenues from grazing CC did not outweigh the additional costs of seed, fuel, and chemical applications. Overall, the NTSF system produced US$34.04 ha−1 greater net returns than the next best system. This result was not sensitive to relative changes in prices of glyphosate, labor, fuel, or cover crop seed.