The objective of this five-year study was to assess the performance of five production systems: system I (wheat/soybean, white oat/soybean, and common vetch/corn); system II (wheat/soybean, white oat/soybean, and oat + common vetch pasture/corn); system III [perennial cool season pasture (tall fescue + white clover + red clover + birdsfoot trefoil)]; and system IV [perennial warm season pasture (bahiagrass + black oat + ryegrass + white clover + red clover + birdsfoot trefoil)]; and system V (alfalfa as hay crop). The plot under systems III, IV, and V returned to system I after the summer of 1996. The treatments were allocated in a complete randomized block design, with four replications. Four types of analysis were applied to the net return of production systems: net return, mean-variance, distribution of accumulated probability, and stochastic dominance. When net return and mean-variance analysis were used no significant differences were observed in the systems studied. The system IV was the best production system to be offered as the better to the farmers for profit and lower risk standpoints by the stochastic dominance analysis.
net return; mean-variance; stochastic dominance; ley forming
