Double cropping can improve profits

A growing global demand for food, coupled with increasing production inputs has many farmers searching for ways to improve the profit potential of their operations. In some cases, farmers already have fixed costs associated with land, machinery and irrigation equipment and have the ability to alter their current monocropping strategies to multiple-cropping systems, which can increase total food production while diversifying the whole farm portfolio. UGA crop and soil sciences experiments conducted in south Georgia have shown the potential to improve profitability of peanut production systems by including a winter wheat crop prior to planting peanuts. In the first year, income was improved by $80 per acre, and the second year income was improved by $140 per acre by including wheat as a winter grain crop followed by peanuts, compared to a monocrop of peanuts alone. Environmental conditions can be a factor on timing of peanut planting, which can affect peanut yields. However, the inclusion of a double-cropped wheat system can offset potential yield reductions, while increasing total farm production and diversifying farm operations.