Optimal Crop Rotation of Idaho Potatoes

Abstract

Idaho's potato growers face increasing price and production risks as the potato industry undergoes structural change. In response, producers have shortened potato crop rotation to counteract the price risk. A risk-neutral discrete stochastic sequential programming (DSSP) model was developed to analyze the affects of the shortened rotation on expected revenue with incorporated price and production risks. The results support the following conclusions: land constraints due to equipment, labor, and capital efficiency alter optimal rotations; given no land constraints, a whole farm 607.3 ha simulation yields the same results as a per-hectare analysis with Potatoes-Wheat-Wheat-Potatoes being the optimal rotation; and longer rotation cycles generate the highest expected revenue per-hectare. Additional conclusions were that the open market generates higher expected revenue when compared to contracts; producers can counteract some of the loss of expected revenues in the contracted market with lower production risk from longer rotation cycles; Idaho potato producers may not be operating at a risk-neutral level.Resumen Los productores de papa de Idaho enfrentan el aumento de los riegos del precio y de producción a medida que la industria de papa sufre cambios estructurales. En respuesta, los productores han acortado la rotación del cultivo de papa para contrarrestar el riesgo del precio. Un modelo de programación secuencial estocástica discreta (DSSP) de riesgo neutral que incorpora los riesgos de precio y producción fue desarrollado para analizar los efectos de una rotación corta sobre los ingresos esperados. Los resultados justifican las siguientes conclusiones: las limitaciones debidas al equipo, trabajo y eficiencia del capital alteran las rotaciones óptimas; cuando no hay tales limitaciones, el rendimiento total de una granja simulada de 607.3 hectáreas da los mismos resultados que el análisis por hectárea siendo la rotación óptima Papa-Trigo-Trigo-Papa; y los ciclos de rotación más largos generan los ingresos esperados por hectárea más altos. Las conclusiones adicionales fueron que el mercado libre genera los ingresos esperados más altos en comparación con los contratos; los productores pueden contrarrestar algunas pérdidas de sus ingresos esperados en el mercado pactado al tener un menor riesgo de producción cuando se usa ciclos rotación más largos; los productores de papa de Idaho pueden no estar operando a nivel de riesgo neutral.

Phytophthora erythroseptica (Pink Rot) Development in Russet Norkotah Potato Grown in Buffered Hydroponic Solutions I. Calcium Nutrition Effects

“…Pink rot is a soil-borne disease and once present P. erythroseptica can maintain high populations within a field for several years especially when potatoes are grown in short rotations. Soil borne pathogen populations build in the soil somewhat proportional to length of years between potato crops and it is specifically known that P. erythroseptica infection increases with short rotations (Myers et al 2008;Peters et al 2005).…”

Trend Detection for the Extent of Irrigated Agriculture in Idaho’s Snake River Plain, 1984–2016

“…However, year-to-year variation in irrigated land areas introduces noise that obscures longer-term changes. Two-to three-year crop rotations are common in Idaho, but rotations on the order of four to five years with land fallowing are often recommended to minimize pest and disease risks and increase revenue [44]. To evaluate long-term changes in the extent of irrigated area, we identified points in our dataset as irrigated in a given year if the point was classified as irrigated at any time within a five-year window.…”

Crop plan optimization under risk on a farm level in the Czech Republic

“…Note that including the crop succession requirements into a mathematical programming model is a nontrivial task that is permanently in the focus of the operations researchers (Seppelt 2000;Dogliotti et al 2003;Klein Haneveld and Stegeman 2005;Bachinger and Zander 2007;Detlefsen and Jensen 2007;Castellazzi et al 2008;Jatoe et al 2008;Benjamin et al 2009;Parsons et al 2009;dos Santos et al 2011). Moreover, the combination of the crop succession restrictions and the risk consideration in a single optimization model is very rare (Myers et al 2008) and leads to a complex optimization problem. None of the results of the current research in the field of the agriculture production planning is immediately applicable to the problems comprising both of the above mentioned features.…”