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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2123/190
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| Title: | Valuing a Test for Nitrogen Status in Rice |
| Authors: | Singh, Rajinder
Williams, Robert
Mullen, John
Faour, Khaled |
| Keywords: | rice
nitrogen
risk |
| Issue Date: | 2-Nov-2005 |
| Abstract: | Nitrogen is a crucial input for the efficient production of rice and is generally applied in two
split treatments. The first treatment is given before flooding the rice paddocks at sowing time
ie at the pre-flooding (PF) stage. The second treatment is applied within a week after the
beginning of the panicle initiation (PI) stage. There is no pre-sowing test to estimate nitrogen
requirements and farmers use cropping history to make this decision. Later in the season
further nitrogen can be applied on the basis of existing Near Infra-red Reflectance (NIR) based
nitrogen tissue test but yield potential has often been established by this time. A further source
of yield risk is temperature prior to flowering and at high rates of nitrogen there is a potential
for yield losses at low temperatures.
The aim of one of the projects, funded by the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for
Sustainable Rice Production, is to develop a nitrogen test for soils of rice paddocks. This
would help determine the amount of nitrogen available in the soil and how much more nitrogen
needs to be applied at the PF stage.
The aim of this study is to first value the information that is provided to the rice growers at PF
by the soil test on nitrogen availability and then measure returns to investment on research and
extension to develop and promote this test. The problem is first presented in a decision tree
framework. The Bayesian framework is then applied, where information provided by the test is
used to revise perceived probabilities of yield outcomes under different nitrogen regimes.
MaNage rice, a bio-economic model, is used to work out payoffs from different rates of
nitrogen at PF on different nitrogen status soils. Finally, returns to investment on R&D are
measured within a benefit-cost framework.
The results reveal that the information provided by the soil test is valuable as the test helps
farmers to use nitrogen more profitably. The outcome of the benefit-cost analysis shows that
with the current accuracy levels the benefits from the new test are not sufficient to meet the
costs involved on research. If the scientists were able to improve the accuracy of the test (ie at
par with existing NIR tissue test), the returns to investment on the project would be quite
significant. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2123/190 |
| Appears in Collections: | Research Papers
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