Brian,

I'm not saying this as a bad point against plowing because I know it's needed in some areas to produce crops, but I do want to point out one point you were trying to make in your post that carries little value. It's not about TOP yields, at least for profitable producers, it's about most profitable yields. We could over fertilize and have extremely high corn yields 1 out of every 4-5 years and good yields the rest of the years but it's just not economical. We're better off fertilizing and working for 140-150bpa year after year than shooting for that 180-200 we "might" see.

Point is, just because you can produce the higher or "the highest" yields are they really economically feasable? I know that when you compare our per bushel production cost to someplace in Nebraska that can raise 250 bpa irrigated corn ours is considerably lower, and I think theirs could be lowered if they weren't simply trying to beat the neighbor all the time. If by backing water pumping and fert. usage back to 180 bushel levels increased the profit per acre, wouldn't that make more sense? Not likely you'll see that though, as the neighbors now have you "beat" by 70bpa.