RULES FOR THE USE OF THESES

This thesis examines the use of precision agriculture data, specifically yield maps, for making site-specific economic decisions for improved farm management. The adoption of precision agriculture on farms has allowed producers to collect a greater quantity and more specific information about production than ever before. With such information, site-specific decisions can be made. Incorporating economic data with yield map data, two primary decision examples are developed: defining areas of production and nonproduction and managing temporal risk spatially across a field. Included with the production / nonproduction decision are the effects that land tenure arrangements and risk aversion levels have on the decision. The risk maps are developed using break-even analysis, the coefficient of variation, and a mean-variance framework, all based on a twenty year average of temporal net returns, measured spatially. The risk maps are repeated incorporating a crop insurance option, a commonly used risk management tool. Results show that developing these maps can be used by agricultural producers to help with their decision making. By incorporating these maps into the decision-making process, decisions can be made to increase farm profitability