Useful to usable
Transforming Climate Variability and
Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers
U2U Decision Support Tools - Irrigation Investment Calculator
Welcome to the Irrigation Investment DST
This tool lets you explore the profitability of installing irrigation equipment at user-selected locations across the Corn Belt. The Irrigation Investment DST combines historical weather data and crop simulation model data with customizable yield, cost, tax and loan information to help you evaluate whether an investment in irrigation equipment may be profitable.
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About Irrigation
To get started, click on any location within the gray area of the map or use the search feature.
Tool Tips:
- Use white user location icon (
) in upper right hand corner of map to zoom to current location of computer being used. - Use the layer icon (
) in the upper right hand corner of the map to control your viewing options. - Tested with browsers: Internet Explorer 11 & later; FireFox 27.0 & later; Chrome 33.0 & later; Safari 6.1.6 & later.
Note: Use of this tool is not a guarantee of any particular economic or yield result, nor of the availability or cost of irrigation water in any location. This tool should not be used as the sole basis for making an irrigation investment decision. Default values are approximate and should be customized for the tool to be most helpful to the user. Consultation with an agronomic expert or irrigation professional should always occur before making major investments or farm management changes.
Use this tool to determine if investment in an irrigation system may be profitable by customizing your farming inputs and loan information (red sections), and exploring the gross margins and Net Present Value of an investment over the system lifetime (green sections). The inputs are pre-populated with location-based default values that you should customize to increase the accuracy of your personalized results.
How to use this tool:
Click here to start 1. Capital
Costs 2. Yield
Goals 3. Crop
Rotation
& Price 4. Water
Applied 5. Gross
Margins 6. Net
Present
Value
Click here to start 1. Capital
Costs 2. Yield
Goals 3. Crop
Rotation
& Price 4. Water
Applied 5. Gross
Margins 6. Net
Present
Value
Location: Bureau Co., Illinois; Region: 1
Inputs: Capital Cost & Loan Information
$
acres
Salvage Value of Investment at End of
Evaluated Time Period: $67,500
Evaluated Time Period: $67,500
$
%
Income Tax Information
%
$
%
Inputs: About Your Farm
bu
bu
These yield goals are critical inputs—the default values should be adjusted to match the dryland yield goals you manage for on your farm. Adjustments to these values update the default yield assumptions for average/dry/wet year yields in the Crop Production Information section.
Inputs: Crop Production Information
|
Crop rotation and price
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dryland Crop Rotation | Irrigated Crop Rotation | |||
| Crops Grown | Corn | Soybean | Corn | Soybean |
| Rotation | % | % | % | % |
| Price per Bu | $ | $ | $ | $ |
|
Crop yield and water needs during Average / Dry / Wet Years
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dryland Crop Rotation | Irrigated Crop Rotation | |||
| Crops Grown | Corn | Soybean | Corn | Soybean |
|
Average Rainfall Year |
||||
| Yields (bu/acre) | ||||
| Water Applied in Acre-Inches | ||||
|
Dry Year |
||||
| Yields (bu/acre) | ||||
| Water Applied in Acre-Inches | ||||
|
Wet Year |
||||
| Yields (bu/acre) | ||||
| Water Applied in Acre-Inches | ||||
| Average Weighted Yield | -- | -- | -- | -- |
Inputs: Advanced Cost Configurations (Optional)
There are numerous expenses (labor, fuel, fertilizer, marketing, etc.) associated with dryland and irrigated farming, and these costs may differ during dry, wet, or average rainfall years. Since these detailed costs are often difficult to estimate, the tool is populated with default values based on the 2013 USDA Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey and the 2015 Purdue Crop Cost and Return Guide. You can customize any of these production costs, if known, for more accurate results.
Average Rainfall Year Costs
| Dryland | With Irrigation | ||||
| Corn | Soybean | Corn | Soybean | ||
| Gross Income (per Acre) | |||||
| Labor Hours per Acre (not including irrigation hours) | hrs | hrs | hrs | hrs | |
| Irrigation Labor Hours (per Acre) | —— | —— | hrs | hrs | |
| Variable Expenses per Unit | |||||
| Seed (per Acre) | $ | $ | $ | $ | |
| Fertilizer (per Acre) | $ | $ | $ | $ | |
| Chemicals (per Acre) | $ | $ | $ | $ | |
|
Drying Cost
$
per Bu
|
|||||
| Water Energy and Distribution Cost (per Acre) | —— | —— | |||
| Irrigation Labor (per Acre) | —— | —— | $0 | $0 | |
| Fuel & Oil (per Acre) | $ | $ | $ | $ | |
| Repairs (per Acre) | $ | $ | $ | $ | |
| Utilities (per Acre) | $ | $ | $ | $ | |
| Crop Insurance (per Acre) | $ | $ | $ | $ | |
|
Trucking
$
per Bu
|
|||||
|
Marketing
$
per Bu
|
|||||
| Labor (per Acre) | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | |
| Total Cost (per Acre) | |||||
| Gross Margin per Crop (per Acre) | |||||
| Gross Margin per Rotation (per Acre) | |||||
Results: Gross Margins based on Crop Rotations and Weather
Dryland Crop Rotation
Irrigated Crop Rotation
Results: Returns over System Lifetime
The NPV is positive.
The NPV is low or negative.
The NPV is negative.
Irrigation may be a profitable
investment.
investment.
More analysis is needed to determine if
irrigation may be profitable.
irrigation may be profitable.
Irrigation investment does not appear
to be profitable.
to be profitable.
Net Present Value (NPV)
Discounted After Tax Cash Flow: 0
Discounted After Tax Cash Flow: 0
Internal Rate of Return Before Tax:
0
Internal Rate of Return After Tax:
0
HISTORICAL SCENARIO
Suppose you had an irrigation system installed from 0. In how many years would it have been profitable?
Note: Use of this tool is not a guarantee of any particular economic or yield result, nor of the availability or cost of irrigation water in any location. This tool should not be used as the sole basis for making an irrigation investment decision. Default values are approximate and should be customized for the tool to be most helpful to the user. Consultation with an agronomic expert or irrigation professional should always occur before making major investments or farm management changes.
Reset all inputs to the defaults for this site.
