Farmers' Investment Decisions on Winter Cover Crops in Dryland Cotton Production.

Soil conservation practices including cover crops are promoted to mitigate soil erosion without reducing farm profits. With moderate spatial differences, the adoption rate of cover crops is still low across U.S., which is explained by inconsistent findings on the profitability of planting cover crops. Cover crops could increase net returns through higher cash crop yields and reduced N fertilizer costs with legume cover crops. However, the establishment and termination of cover crops increase the production cost. Studies in the Southern High Plains have reported mixed results on crop yield and profit. To investigate farmers’ investment decisions on cover crops, we used data from a 4-yr continuous dryland cotton production in the Texas Rolling Plains. Field treatments included conventional tillage, no-till, and no-till with four cover crops (winter wheat, crimson clover, Austrian winter field pea, and hairy vetch) as well as a treatment with mixed cover crops. To study farmers’ investment decisions, we conducted a constrained optimization analysis using integer programming approach. The production costs for conventional tillage and no-till without a cover crop were $290/ac and 278/ac, and the gross returns were $469/ac and $456/ac, respectively. The production costs were $305/ac, $319/ac, $ 327/ac, $343/ac, and $332/ac for wheat, clover, pea, vetch and mixture treatments, respectively. The gross returns were from $455/ac to $492/ac for the cover crops treatments. Under a zero-subsidy scenario, farmers would fallow the land if their budgets were less than $278/ac; they would adopt no-till without any cover crops with budget greater than $278/ac. Under a $50/ac subsidy (cost-share) scenario, farmers would adopt no-till without any cover crop with budgets between $278/ac and $304/ac; they would adopt no-till with wheat if their budgets are greater than $304/ac. Therefore, this research presents insights for cotton producers’ decision making under alternative policy programs and varying budget constraints.