Economic valuation of tillage systems in crop rotations with grain legumes

Abstract

Through an extension of crop rotations and the consistent renouncement of ploughing the capital requirement and the fixed costs are decreasing. This increases the competitiveness of the plant production. The change to minimum tillage systems without any ploughing is easy by alternating cereals and leaf crops or winter crops and spring crops. Grain legumes can have a central role in those cultivation systems. The common method of cost accounting is not convenient for a long-term valuation because precrop effects and important costs like those for mechanisation are not considered. The analysis of a farm in the south of Lower Saxony with only little potential for optimization showed higher economic profit and less demand for labour time after the conversion to an extended crop rotation including faba beans. The valuation of crop rotations by using an advanced direct costing method revealed the economic advantage of extended crop rotations by the integration of grain legumes.