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New Crop Budgets on VCE Website
Farm Business Management Update, August - September 2007
By Eric Eberly (eeberly@vt.edu) Extension Agent, Farm Business Management
The 2007 Virginia Crop budgets are now on the Virginia Cooperative Extension World Wide Web site. The 58 crop budgets and related information files are available in spreadsheet interactive version Microsoft Excel® and in a static version via Adobe® PDF format. Electronic copies of the budgets can be viewed and/or downloaded by going to the site http://www.ext.vt.edu/, select "Educational Programs & Resources," on the next page, select "Farm Business Management & Marketing" and finally selecting "Budgets" from the list of resources. Budgets for cotton, tobacco, peanuts, and canola have been added to the list (see Table 2 for a listing of all the 2007 Crop Budgets). A few of the new features of crop budgets are discussed below.
Nutrient removal: The quantity of nutrients (N, P, K) listed on a budget are linked to the expected yield. The quantity listed is based on nutrient removal of this yield plus an additional 30 percent to cover variability. Actual quantity applied in the column labeled “soil test recommendation” takes precedence over the calculated quantity in determining cost as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Example fertilizer section – Crop budget
FERTILIZER |
Soil Test Recommendation |
Quantity |
Price |
Total |
|
NITROGEN |
100 |
LBS |
86.00 |
$0.38 |
$38.00 |
PHOSPHATE |
|
LBS |
50.00 |
$0.32 |
$16.00 |
POTASH |
|
LBS |
33.00 |
$0.26 |
$8.58 |
Fuel Costs: Total fuel costs are calculated based on tractors and equipment compliment used. The unpredictable price of diesel fuel has made published projections less reliable. The term “equivalent gallons” is used to cover both fuel and lubricants when the cost of diesel fuel is backed out of the equation. Users should enter the current diesel fuel price to determine the total costs of fuel, oil, and lubricants.
Cell comments: Comments have been added to individual cells (Figures 1 and 2) to assist you in entering numbers or determining where the numbers came from. The comments feature in Excel (Figure 3) will need to be selected (turned on) if comments are not visible. This feature should be deselected (turned off) if the pop-up comments become annoying.
Table 2: Listing of 2007 Crop Budgets |
|
Budget Category |
Individual Crop Budget Titles |
Alfalfa Hay |
Alfalfa Hay -- Conventional Establishment |
Annual Pasture and Hay |
Pearl Millet for Summer Grazing -- No Till Establishment |
Corn Grain |
Corn Grain Conventional Tillage, 80 Bu |
Corn Silage |
Corn Silage Conventional Tillage, 14 Ton |
Cotton |
Cotton Roundup Ready Conventional Tillage |
Data Files |
2007 Machinery/implements Costs per acre |
Fescue Pasture and Hay |
Pasture Maintenance |
Grain Sorghum and Grain Sorghum Silage |
Grain Sorghum Silage Minimum Tillage, 12 Ton Yield |
Grass-Clover Hay |
Orchardgrass Red Clover - Conventional Establishment |
Peanut |
Peanuts - Conventional |
Silage and Double Crop |
Corn Silage, Barley Silage Double Crop |
Small Grain, Canola, and Straw |
Barley Grain (Following Corn Silage) |
Soybean |
Soybeans -- Full Season, Conventional Till 30 Bu |
Tobacco |
Flue-Cured Tobacco, Irrigated, 2500 Lbs. |
Warm Season Pasture and Hay |
Bluestem Conventional Establishment |
Nutrient Removal by Crops in North Carolina. North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service. Publication AG-439-16 March 1991 (TMD) Last Web Update: December 1997 (DBL). http://www.soil.ncsu.edu/publications/Soilfacts/AG-439-16/
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