Economic effectiveness of direct drill in maize production

Abstract

Within the concept of sustainable agriculture, raising environmental awareness of farmers and the preservation of natural resources, the implementation of the so-called conservation tillage began during the 1960s in the USA. It involves the application of a reduced or completely eliminated (no-till, zero tillage, direct drill) sowing tillage, which prevents soil erosion, improves soil quality and biodiversity, also significantly reducing gas emissions by implementing a set of technical solutions. The application of this concept requires the existence of appropriate machinery that enables the use of direct seeding on land where plant residues of previous crops are present in the amount of minimum 30%. In addition to significant environmental impacts, this concept provides positive economic effects: for the whole society by eliminating the cost caused by soil degradation, but also for individual agricultural producers through the elimination of a significant number of complex machining operations and savings in diesel fuel and working hours of machines and employees. A comparative analysis of the economic effectiveness of maize production in terms of conventional tillage and no-till on a farm in Novi Sad showed that the application of direct drill allows skipping 4 to 5 machining operations, leading to a saving of 59 litres of diesel fuel per hectare of cultivated area while retaining the same average yield per ha, which resulted in increased profits by 4,246 RSD ha-1 compared to conventional tillage.

Keywords

• agricultural economics
• cost-effectiveness
• drilling
• economic analysis
• maize
• zero tillage