CropCents is a supplemental app to the DairyCentsPRO (DCP) mobile app that calculates Income over Feed Costs and feed management metrics. DairyCentsPRO allows users to use their own value for home raised feed or use a market value.

An accurate accounting of home raised feeds is a better approach versus using the market prices to calculate income over feed costs; however, most livestock producers do not know the actual costs to raise their home raised feeds.

CropCents can be used for crop, dairy and beef producers because it can allocate labor hours between the animal and crop enterprises.

The app then further allocates costs by crop hours based on crop type and acres. The app also allows for multiple cuttings and distribution between haylages and dry hay.

Once all the crop and financial information is entered, the output will give the yield in tons/acre and the cost/ton. 

Advertisement

These numbers can be compared to the current market prices or they can be entered into the DCP mobile app to calculate a herd’s income over feed cost using actual feed prices.

Funding for these apps was made possible by USDA -RMA and the Mid-Atlantic Water Program supported in part by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA.  FG

—From Penn State news release