The Cost and Benefit of Irrigation and Crop Rotation for Cotton Grown in a Verticillium Wilt Field in the Southern High Plains of Texas

The Southern High Plains of Texas has historically had problems with Verticillium wilt. Management of Verticillium wilt is difficult, so there has been  little work to determine the cost/benefit of management of this disease in cotton. Research was conducted to compare economically a system of continuous cotton to rotated cotton (2-year cotton/1-year sorghum). Three different irrigation rates; base, base -50%, and base + 50% were used. The average mean returns above total specified expenses for 2007-2012 (2011 excluded) was calculated.  The result showed more water (base+50%) in all three cropping systems was less profitable than the base irrigation rate, which was designed to meet approximately 60% of the crop irrigation needs. Whereas, less water (base-50%) resulted in less disease, but turned out to be the least profitable in comparison to the other two irrigation rates.