How could changes in fertilizer and fuel costs affect your operation in 2015? What will happen if you eliminate or add a trip through the field or change a practice?

The UNL Crop Production Budgets released this week by Nebraska Extension offer the chance to examine and compare crop production costs for 14 crops and 69 systems. Developed by a team of ag economics, crop production, and pest management specialists, the budgets provide a framework for decision-making. They are provided in both PDF and Excel formats.

No two farmers will manage their farms the same way and no two farms will have the same production costs. These cost-only budgets are representative of typical systems, said Roger Wilson, Nebraska extension farm management/enterprise budget analyst and co-editor of the 2015 Crop Budgets.

Other editors are Robert Klein, extension western Nebraska crops specialist, and Jessica Johnson, agricultural economics extension educator. Contributors in their specialty areas were Robert Wright, extension entomologist; Tamra Jackson, Loren Giesler, and Stephen Wegulo, extension plant pathologists; Paul Jasa, extension engineer; Robert Wilson, weed management specialist; Gary Hergert, soil and nutrition management specialist; and James Schild, extension educator in Scotts Bluff and Morrill counties.

"The Excel version of each budget allows you to input numbers specific to your operation to better approximate your costs." They also allow for testing alternative practices that would affect total production costs. Budgets for 2014 are also available for reference.

In reviewing this year's budgets, Wilson said that no one cost category was significantly up or significantly down, although there were shifts in individual cost categories.

Fuel costs were dropped from the 2014 budget rate of $3.50 per gallon to $3.25. "Now, that looks a little high," Wilson said, noting that costs for commodities like fuel and fertilizer can vary significantly and users may want to make adjustments that reflect their individual costs.

Growers also may want to change yield.  Changing yield for corn will change costs for seed, fertilizer,  drying and transportation. Changing yield for other crops will only affect transportation costs.

"Two other items really affected these budgets: the price of machinery and the price of land," Wilson said. "The authors use an average machine age of 5 years for many implements, 10 years for irrigation equipment to do their calculations. If you assume the machine is newer (for example, five years old), it has more depreciation and fewer repairs than one that's 15 years old."  With the Excel option, growers can input numbers representative of the equipment on their farm. 

The budgets are also available on the Nebraska Extension Publications website as EC872.

Lisa Jasa, CropWatch Editor