Future research is needed to determine the overall impacts of a viable stover market on corn and soybean production and price. Hypothetical Model Farm Scenario This study focused on on-farm trials conducted on a representative US Cornbelt farm considered timely with respect to planting and harvesting.
Ted Macy, president of Map-shots, does a lot of precision ag software for large farm machinery firms, and is a proponent of open architecture software. I wonder when two former students will link LCB with other software. Maybe Norm will help tie precision ag and LCB together. At this price, stover provided enough additional profit to entice farmers to shift to more continuous corn production. programming (LP) model was formulated using PCLP Version 5, (Dobbins et al., 2001) which has been used since 1968 in conjunction with Purdue’s Top Farmer Crop Workshop. Oh, I named site-specific farming in a 1983 Purdue publication. At a price of 88.19 $ Mg −1, farms in the base case harvested corn stover at a rate of 2.49 Mg ha −1 using a 33% removal rate. Finally, one of the authors (M.S.) would like to acknowledge the support of his friend Kris Meade during the long time it took to finish this project. Corn stover supply, farm profit, and land allocation was analyzed under multiple scenarios. Remove anything before this line, then unpack it by saving it in a file and typing 'sh file'. Also, Pat Kerkhoff (Purdue), and Tammy Duarte, Amy Atkinson, and Robin Wallace (SPAR) provided excellent secretarial support, even in the face of deadlines and garbled instructions. Costs will vary considerably from farm to farm and from year to year depending on weather conditions.Ī linear programming model was used to estimate the willingness of corn growers to harvest corn stover at varying stover prices. The total cost of harvest and supply is estimated between 82.19 $ Mg −1 (dry) and 100.56 $ Mg −1 (dry). Supply costs include storage, loading and unloading, and transport. Harvest cost includes payments for fuel, labor, equipment ownership and repair, net wrap, and nutrient replacement.
In this study, corn stover is collected in large round bales using a raking, baling, and staging method.
This study estimates the costs of corn stover harvest and supply, and then uses that information to estimate farm production decisions and changes to farm profit at varying corn stover prices. In addition to meeting renewable energy goals, use of corn stover for energy production may provide a new source of income for corn growers. A lot of attention is being paid to potential use of corn stover as a feedstock for bioenergy production. The Purdue Crop/Livestock Linear Programming (PCLP) model was chosen to simulate farm decisions.