3.1.1. Farming Practices

Data on growers' agricultural experience and practices are summarized in Table 2. In terms of farming experience, respondents represented a wide range of experience, from as little as three years to as much as 80 years of farming experience. Every measure indicated that these were seasoned farmers. On average, growers had 28 years of farming experience with a median and mode of 29 and 30 years of experience, respectively. More than 84 percent of farmers had 10 years or more of farming experience. Approximately two-thirds of the sample were farmers with more than 20 years of experience. The number of years farming was expected to be negatively associated with the adoption of agricultural innovations.


**Table 2.** Summary statistics of cultural practices.

Note: CRP is NRCS Conservation Reserve Program; EQIP is NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program; RCPP is NRCS Regional Conservation Partnership Program; CSP is NRCS Conservation Stewardship Program; NRCS is USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service unspecified program.

The size of the farming operation is an important factor in deciding the adoption of agricultural practices in general. The average operation involved 896 ha of irrigated farmland with a median of 567 ha and as much as 6070 irrigated ha. More than three-fourths of the responding growers operated 1133 ha or less. Hence, the number of irrigated hectares was expected to be positively correlated with the adoption of conservation practices.

Crop choice is oftentimes associated with the choice of irrigation technology [28,29]. The largest number of growers reported producing irrigated soybeans (*n* = 131), which occupied the largest cultivated area among the irrigated crops reported: 671 ha on average and as much as 3804 ha. Irrigated corn was the second most popular crop choice with 106 farmers reporting an average of 305 ha and as much as 1821 ha of irrigated farmland dedicated to that crop. Cotton is a traditional crop in the Delta region of Mississippi. About a third of the respondents grew cotton with irrigation dedicating an average of 490 ha and as much as 2833 ha to its production. These are typically row-crops that employ the same or similar irrigation setups when the fields are prepared for furrow irrigation.

Kebede et al. [2] reported that irrigated rice consumes more water than any other crop in the region. Growers in this sample reported an average of 373 ha of irrigated rice farmland with as much as 1558 ha of rice under irrigation. Rice production was expected to be negatively correlated with the conservation practices considered in this article, which were better suited for row-crop irrigation.

Cover crops are typically not harvested. Consequently, these crops were not considered as part of crop choices, but rather as a conservation practice in this article. Nearly a third (30.1 percent) of growers in the sample claimed to plant cover crops. Responses to the survey varied widely in terms of crop and area matching. Wheat and radishes received the highest reported area of 1335 ha, while the least was reported for Asian mustard greens (4 ha). The adoption of this practice was tested against the identified explanatory factors.

Land leveling is a relatively common practice in the area with 84 percent of growers reporting having at least a part of their fields land-leveled in some way. It is also no surprise that 51.4 percent of the participating growers reported that some fields were not leveled because the Delta in Mississippi is unusually flat. Precision grade was the most common land leveling method with 78 percent of growers employing it on an average of 733 ha and in up to 4654 ha of their operation.

Awareness and participation in conservation programs were expected to positively influence the adoption of irrigation water conservation practices [4,6]. Three-fourths of the growers claimed participation in a conservation program. The program most commonly cited was the NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) with 59 percent participation.
