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The Cotton Yield Monitor Investment Decision Aid (CYMIDA) utilizes partial budgeting and breakeven techniques to evaluate the potential costs and benefits of a cotton yield monitoring information system. CYMIDA has the following features: 1) a printable users guide, 2) easy point and click operation, 3) default yield monitor purchase costs to serve as a starting point for the user, and 4) sensitivity analysis for changes in both cotton and input prices. CYMIDA calculates annual and per-acre cotton yield monitor ownership costs based on crop acreage, harvest capacity, and yield monitor purchase costs. CYMIDA gives producers a risk-free opportunity to evaluate the lint yield gains and input cost savings needed to pay for a yield monitoring information system before actually investing in the technology. Required yield gains and input savings to pay for investment in the information system can be evaluated for the following crop input decisions: seed, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, lime, growth regulators, fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, harvest aids, and drainage. In 2002, CYMIDA was simply a spreadsheet now it is a user friendly program.

Research was conducted to evaluate the breakeven yield gains and input savings required to cover the cost of investment in a precision farming system for gathering site-specific information and applying crop inputs using that information and variable rate technology. Results indicate that investment in the system is more economically feasible for larger cotton farms because costs can be spread over more cotton acreage. Allocating some of the ownership costs for certain equipment to other crops improves the relative profitability of the precision farming system for cotton.