Economic Analysis of the Impact of Alternative Crops in Cotton Rotations Compared to Monoculture Cotton

A Profitability Analysis Comparing Continuous Cotton to Alternative Crop Rotations Under Limited Irrigation in Texas High Plains

The Texas High Plains faces an increasing dependence on seasonal rainfall due to declining water tables constraining crop production. In two agronomic studies performed by Bordovsky et al. (2019; 2015), yield and total water use for continuous cotton were compared to 3 year cotton rotations that replaced cotton every 3^rdyear with 1) BMR forage sorghum, non-BMR forage sorghum, safflower and sunflower (test years 2013 to 2016) and 2) corn and grain sorghum two populations (years 2017 to 2019). Seasonal irrigation was limited to 0, 3 and 6 acre/inches per year in addition to yearly rainfall. An economic analysis will be performed to analyze the profitability of these field trials by calculating gross revenue, variable costs, and gross margin.