Downsizing an Integrated Crop Management Field Study Affects Economic and Biological Results
2001
Wei, Wei | Alldredge, JRichard | Young, Douglas L. | Young, Frank L.
In recent years, there has been increased interest in long-term, field-scale cropping systems research to improve pest management, to protect air and soil quality, and to increase or maintain growers' profits. However, these studies require large tracts of land, sizeable labor forces, and substantial inventories of equipment, which make them very expensive to conduct. Because of recent concerns about reducing field research costs, this study compares economic and biological results from an original complete 6-yr integrated cropping management (ICM) systems field study to results from several downsized experiments, which were components of the complete study. Compared with the original ICM study, the downsized experiments reduced the number of treatment replications from four to three, reduced the number of crop rotation cycles from two to one (from 6 to 3 yr), or only grew one crop per rotation each year. The effect of downsizing on the profitability analysis and the statistical (biological) analysis were similar. Reducing replications altered both profitability and biological conclusions less than reducing the number of rotation cycles. Reducing crop rotation cycles markedly altered treatment profitability rankings compared with the complete study. Growing only one crop in a rotation per year was the most detrimental to biological results and entirely precluded computing mean annual cropping system profitability. This empirical study supports the importance of replicating treatments fully over time, over space, and over crop rotational positions.
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