When Variable Drilling Cost > Expected Crop Revenue per acre, planting guarantees cash drain. Leaving poor soil bare incurs only minimal bare land maintenance (£15/A), avoiding heavy fertilizer & diesel input losses.
When does planting an arable field create greater net losses than leaving it as fallow ground?
In arable farm management, variable drilling inputs—fertilizer, diesel, and seed—are incurred only when a crop is planted. If a marginal field's projected yield and crop price cannot generate enough revenue to cover these operational costs plus bare ground upkeep (£15/acre in this model), cultivating that land deepens net farm losses. Allocating unproductive acreage to bare fallow caps expenses at baseline maintenance rather than exposing working capital to negative gross margins.
This simulation relies on stylized fixed baselines (3.2 t/acre for wheat, 2.5 t/acre for barley) and linear soil index modifiers across six static parcels. Commercial UK farm planning accounts for crop rotation requirements, soil chemistry, agri-environment incentives (such as SFI and Countryside Stewardship), and variable machinery depreciation, meaning real farm profitability rarely scales in discrete linear steps.
From the default state (Total Net Margin -£17,525, Planted Acreage 800 A, Fallow Acreage 200 A, and Avoided Input Losses £7,000), click 'Full Planting Strategy'. All six plots are planted (1,000 A total, 0 A fallow). Plots P3 and P4 shift from barley to wheat, while marginal plots P1 and P2 are drilled with barley. This eliminates the counterfactual avoided loss (£0) and updates the Total Net Margin to -£2,295.
The model calculates variable drilling costs per planted acre by summing the fertilizer slider, diesel and machinery slider, and a fixed £40/acre seed baseline. A field breaks even on variable inputs when Expected Yield × Grain Price equals Variable Drilling Cost. If yield potential is below this threshold, revenue fails to cover working capital, creating an operating deficit on each acre drilled.
When a parcel is designated as fallow, the model charges £15/acre for bare land maintenance and evaluates a counterfactual: if that plot were planted in wheat at current input prices, would its net revenue fall below -£15/acre? If so, the difference is tallied under 'Avoided Input Losses', demonstrating how deliberate non-drilling protects working capital on poor soils.
The fixture divides one thousand acres into six plots. Five hundred are wheat, three hundred barley and two hundred fallow. At one half pixel per acre the bars measure two hundred fifty, one hundred fifty and one hundred. Planted cost per acre adds two hundred eighty fertilizer, ninety fuel and forty seed, four hundred ten total. Fallow costs fifteen per acre. These are fixed hypothetical scenario values, not current farm prices or a recommendation. Soil quality multiplies preset yields, and the model has no weather distributions or crop-specific input requirements. Default wheat revenue is two hundred ninety five thousand two hundred and barley one hundred three thousand two hundred seventy five, totaling three hundred ninety eight thousand four hundred seventy five. Planted inputs are three hundred twenty eight thousand, fallow upkeep three thousand and fixed overhead eighty five thousand, total four hundred sixteen thousand. Net is negative seventeen thousand five hundred twenty five. At one pixel per one thousand dollars gross, total costs and loss magnitude measure three hundred ninety eight point four seven five, four hundred sixteen and seventeen point five two five. A fallow strategy can reduce a modeled loss while the whole farm remains negative. For the first fallow plot, hypothetical wheat would lose six thousand four hundred forty compared with one thousand five hundred upkeep, avoiding four thousand nine hundred forty. The second would lose three thousand five hundred sixty versus one thousand five hundred upkeep, avoiding two thousand sixty. At one pixel per twenty dollars first benefit, second and total seven thousand measure two hundred forty seven, one hundred three and three hundred fifty. This is a wheat counterfactual only, not proof of best use among all crops. The graph library is missing before listeners in this saved offline page, so native controls and export remain unbound rather than executing an optimizer.