Breakeven Sensitivity Analysis of Full-Season and Double-Cropped Soybean Systems.

Full-season soybean and soybean grown after wheat are the predominant soybean cropping systems in the Mid-Atlantic.  Little information is available comparing a barley-soybean system to either full-season soybean or wheat-soybean cropping systems.  Virginia studies are outdated and new data is needed.  This paper describes a model that can be used to determine breakeven prices among these different cropping systems.  Double-cropped systems were generally more efficient than mono-cropped systems because some costs, such as lime, land rent, or machinery depreciation, which remained independent of cropping system, were spread out over two crops and because of the increased crop production per acre.  Production practices between the double-cropped wheat-soybean and double-cropped barley-soybean systems were assumed to be virtually the same and required no additional equipment.  Net returns for the barley-soybean system was the greatest primarily because of soybean's potential following barley to yield equal to full-season soybean and greater than the wheat-soybean system.  This conclusion was supported by breakeven sensitivity analysis, but remains dependent on prices that have recently been extremely volatile.  An interactive spreadsheet was developed and can be used to comopare initial profitability over variable costs of the different systems.