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Extension Communications
3614 Administrative Services Building
Ames, Iowa 50011-3614
(515) 294-9915

6/20/03

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:
Kathleen Delate, Agronomy and Horticulture, (515) 294-7069, kdelate@iastate.edu
Craig Chase, Farm Management Specialist, (319) 234-6811, cchase@iastate.edu
Jean McGuire, Continuing Education and Communications Services, (515) 294-7033, jmcguire@iastate.edu

ISU Extension Releases Organic Crop Research Results

This is the sixth crop season that Iowa State University (ISU) Extension researchers are comparing the yields of organic and conventional crop production. The results of the economic returns from 1999 to 2001 were published in a recent edition of the American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, Vol. 18 (2) 59-69.

In the study led by Kathleen Delate, assistant professor, Agronomy and Horticulture, at the ISU Neely-Kinyon Research Farm in southwest Iowa, identical hybrid varieties of corn and soybeans are being grown using conventional and organic methods. In the conventional plots, an alternating cycle of corn and soybeans is being grown. In the organic plots, oats and alfalfa are added to the corn-soybean rotation. Each crop in each rotation is planted every year.

The organic plots were started in 1998 at the Neely-Kinyon Farm, but economic analysis began in 1999, and is reported in the journal article. "In the first three years we found that soybean yields were not statistically different between conventional and organic, and that organic yellow dent feed corn yields were equivalent in organic and conventional plots," Delate said. "And in the fourth year the organic corn yield and soybean yield in one treatment surpassed the conventional yield. Those yields were in fields that followed two years of alfalfa. The only year organic corn was less than conventional was in 1999, when a white milling variety was grown."

A number of parameters are being measured in the research including: economics, weeds, plant pathogens, soybean cyst nematodes, pest insects, beneficial insects, plant tissue nutrients, yields, grain quality and chemical, biological and physical soil quality.

Craig Chase, farm management field specialist, ISU Extension, works on the economic component of the research. "One of the questions you get with looking at an organic system is labor," he said. "The assumption is that there's a lot more labor in an organic system than a conventional system. In this case we haven't seen that."
Many farmers are attracted to organic crops because of the premiums they are paid. Chase says that even without those premiums, the economics of organic production matched or surpassed conventional methods.

"What we found was that on a rotational average, even without premiums, the organic system had a higher return than the conventional system, so premiums weren't as big an issue as we thought, even when you add labor and start charging $10, $20, $50 an hour for labor."

"The only time the conventional system consistently held an economic advantage over the organic was when you add compost costs, labor and no premiums," says Chase. "What we have seen through our research is that organics is definitely a competitive system economically and should be looked at very positively as an alternative to conventional systems."

Delate says the research, supported by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and the USDA Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems Organic Agriculture Consortium, is scheduled to continue for at least six more years.

You can see a copy of the project's current results on the Web at http://extension.agron.iastate.edu/organicag/researchreports/orgeconomics.pdf.

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Editors: Below are two tables showing yield and economic results for this research project.

Table 1. Yields by crop and rotation, 1999-2001

Rotation/Crop
1999
2000
2001
Avg. 1999-2001
Corn-soybean
Corn
161
141
112
138
Soybean
48
40
40
43
Corn-soybean-oat
Corn
122
141
128
130
Soybean
45
36
43
41
Oat
89
63
81
78
Corn-soybean-oat-alfalfa
Corn
120
148
131
133
Soybean
48
37
47
44
Oat
81
61
83
75
Alfalfa
3.2
2.8
2.6
2.9


Table 2. Returns to land, labor, and management ($/A), by crop and rotation, 1999-2001*

Rotation
Corn
Soybean
Oat
Alfalfa
Average
Corn-soybean
51b
95b
73b
Corn-soybean-oat
264a
470a
125
286a
Corn-soybean-oat-alfalfa
272a
505a
112
272
290a

* Returns within columns followed by the same letter are not significantly different (Analysis of variance, Tukey's test, p=0.05).


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