Economic optima of fertilizer in the production of white corn in High Valleys

Abstract

Corn production is carried out in most agricultural areas in the country, Mexico has about 64 races of corn selected for thousands of years by indigenous and mestizo groups, in addition to hybrids and improved varieties. The production technologies used by producers are diverse, ranging from traditional through intermediate to the most modern that use advanced technological packages. The latter apply high doses of fertilizers and high planting densities, with mechanized processes to obtain high yields per hectare; while other producers who apply lower doses of fertilization, with lower yields achieve better profits. The present work aims to identify, in field experiments, the optimal economic dose of fertilizer (F) for producers to achieve the maximum profit. The experiment was carried out in the Experimental Agricultural Field of the Chapingo Autonomous University using a completely randomized experimental design with four repetitions, during the spring-summer cycle of 2019. The estimated quadratic production function of white corn allows calculating the optimal economic or maximum profit dose of F (848 kg ha-1), taking into account the market prices of corn and fertilizer; also the maximum yield dose (1 893 kg ha-1). The results obtained will serve as an economic criterion for making production decisions for both small producers with scarce resources and medium and large producers with more resources.