Grant Gardner

University of Kentucky | UKY

Commercial consultants frequently sell site-specific crop input management recommendation maps (Rxs) to their farmer-clients. This study proposes a method to empirically evaluate the efficacy of commercial Rxs. The method takes three steps: (1) it uses precision agriculture technology to conduct randomized on-farm precision experiments; (2) it esti...

Abstract: Groundwater is critical to irrigated production in many arid and semiarid regions of the world. Groundwater that is low in quality presents limited value to farmers as an input to agricultural production. In this paper, we present findings from a survey of irrigator perceptions and irrigation water testing behavior targeted to producers i...

We examine capitalization of ethanol plant construction and capacity expansion into surrounding irrigated and nonirrigated farmland values using data on every land transaction in Kansas from 1995 to 2017 in a hedonic price model. We hypothesize that corn prices and thus land values are higher near ethanol plants. We further hypothesize that ethanol...

Groundwater resources are vital for U.S. and global irrigated agricultural production. In the United States, groundwater supplies water to approximately 65 percent of all irrigated acreage. The connectivity among irrigators pumping from the same aquifer-paired with growing concerns about groundwater depletion-led to the creation of many of the grou...

Essay 1: Cover crop and no-till adoption: What affects willingness to accept of cover crop and no-till contracts? Carbon markets offer supplemental income to producers for implementing no-till and cover crop practices that sequester carbon in the soil. Using choice experiments, we find that 37% and 43% of our sample would not accept a hypothetical...

Technological advances in data collection and analysis engines have made variable rate input use application much more common. Producers typically purchase software that produces site-specific prescription maps or purchase maps from consultants. The process of generating prescriptions maps is typically black-box, i.e. the process is unknown. Does u...