2021 Nebraska Crop Budgets Review

For the 2021 production year, 83 budgets for 15 crops including 2 cover crops and pasture budgets are avail-able from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the Department of Agricultural Economics and UNL Crop Specialists. The budgets are published online at crop-watch.unl.edu/budgets in two formats including a printable pdf file version and an Excel file version. In-formation on crop budgeting procedures, machinery operation and ownership costs, material and service prices, and a crop budget production cost summary are included in the format of each budget. In general, cash costs per bushel of corn for both dryland and irrigated budgets were projected lower for 2021, primarily due to lower fuel costs, with a dryland corn average cost of $2.34 per bushel and $2.28 per bushel on irrigated corn. A new spring wheat budget was added representing cropping practices in southwest Nebraska, using no-till, wheat after row crop rotation on non-irrigated land. Using a projected 40-bushel yield, cash costs for this spring wheat budget are calculated at $4.25 per bushel with a total economic cost per bushel estimated at $6.00.