Editing Openai/691a94b5-7718-8006-a4b8-bdd4b670138b (section)

==== 1. Ballpark spend per acre per crop (specialty crops) ====

These are per acre, per crop rotation (or per bearing year for perennials) and are chemistry only (not including labor for application, scouting, etc.), using recent enterprise budgets and extension work.

===== Leafy greens (lettuce, spinach, etc.) =====

Example: Coastal California iceberg lettuce (2023 UC Davis cost study)
* Insecticide materials: ≈$420/acre
* Fungicide materials: ≈$430/acre
* Plus herbicide (smaller line, often ~$50–100/acre in these systems) Cost Study Files<ref>{{cite web|title=Cost Study Files|url=https://coststudyfiles.ucdavis.edu/uploads/pub/2023/08/04/2023-iceberglettuce-full-final.pdf|publisher=Cost Study Files|date=2023-08-04|access-date=2025-11-17}}</ref>

Reasonable range for leafy veg:

: ~$400–900/acre per crop in pesticide (insecticide + fungicide + herbicide) materials, depending on pest pressure and planting window.

===== Cole crops (broccoli, cauliflower) =====

Example: Eastern broccoli enterprise budget (Cornell, 2020)
* Herbicides: $43/acre
* Insecticides: $300/acre
* Fungicides: $125/acre ➡️ Total pest-control chem spend ≈ $470/acre. Cornell Dyson<ref>{{cite web|title=Cornell Dyson|url=https://dyson.cornell.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2021/02/EB_2020-12_Eastern_Broccoli_Production_Enterprise_Budgets_2020-VD.pdf|publisher=Cornell Dyson|access-date=2025-11-17}}</ref>

Reasonable range for cole veg:

: ~$300–600/acre per crop on herbicides + insecticides + fungicides.

===== Strawberries (very high input) =====

Strawberries are an outlier – especially California coastal berries:
* UC ANR notes pre-plant fumigation (fungicide/nematicide + chloropicrin) alone commonly runs $800–1,800/acre, depending on method and rate. UC Agriculture and Natural Resources<ref>{{cite web|title=UC Agriculture and Natural Resources|url=https://ucanr.edu/program/uc-anr-small-farms-network/strawberry|publisher=UC Agriculture and Natural Resources|access-date=2025-11-17}}</ref>
* Historical USDA/ERS work (1990s) already had pesticide expenditures for strawberries at ~$1,588/acre nationally, which gives you a sense of how high they’ve been for a long time. Economic Research Service<ref>{{cite web|title=Economic Research Service|url=https://ers.usda.gov/sites/default/files/_laserfiche/publications/43854/46734_eib124.pdf|publisher=Economic Research Service|access-date=2025-11-17}}</ref>

In current UC Davis coastal strawberry budgets, total operating costs per acre are now on the order of $110k+/acre, and pest management (fumigation + in-season fungicides/insecticides + miticides) is one of the single largest cultural cost buckets. Farm Bureau<ref>{{cite web|title=Farm Bureau|url=https://www.fb.org/market-intel/specialty-crops-mounting-cost-pressure-limited-risk-protection|publisher=Farm Bureau|access-date=2025-11-17}}</ref>

Reasonable range for strawberries:

: ~$1,000–3,000/acre per crop on pesticides/herbicides/fungicides (fumigation + in-season), with the upper end in long-season coastal CA systems.

===== Tree nuts (almonds as a proxy) =====

Recent almond work in California gives some concrete numbers:
* UC/Almond Board economics and cost studies put total operating costs around $3,700–3,800/acre, with custom pesticide application alone around $160–240/acre in recent budgets. The Almond Board of California<ref>{{cite web|title=The Almond Board of California|url=https://www.almonds.org/sites/default/files/2024-12/Economics%20of%20Almond%20Production%20-%20Final.pdf|publisher=The Almond Board of California|access-date=2025-11-17}}</ref>
* Additional work on navel orangeworm (NOW) control estimates statewide average cost of pesticides + winter sanitation at ~$344/acre. West Coast Nut<ref>{{cite web|title=West Coast Nut|url=https://wcngg.com/2023/07/01/economic-considerations-for-navel-orangeworm-management-in-almond-orchards/|publisher=West Coast Nut|date=2023-07-01|access-date=2025-11-17}}</ref>

When you add herbicides for the tree row, in-season insecticides, fungicides for diseases, and sometimes mating disruption, you’re typically in the low- to mid-hundreds per acre.

Reasonable range for almonds & similar tree nuts:

: ~$250–450/acre per bearing year on chemistries (herbicide + insecticide + fungicide + mating disruption), sometimes higher in high-pressure orchards.

===== Tree fruit (apples, stone fruit) – conventional & organic =====
* A well-cited survey of organic apples in the Northwest found average pest control costs of about $398/acre, with total costs ~$3,747/acre. ATTRA<ref>{{cite web|title=ATTRA|url=https://attra.ncat.org/publication/apples-organic-production-guide/|publisher=attra.ncat.org|access-date=2025-11-17}}</ref>
* Conventional high-density apple budgets today generally land in a similar or slightly higher range for crop protection inputs, depending on disease pressure and codling moth programs. MU Extension<ref>{{cite web|title=MU Extension|url=https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/g712|publisher=MU Extension|access-date=2025-11-17}}</ref>

Reasonable range for apples / other tree fruit:

: ~$300–600/acre per year on pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, with wide variation by region and disease pressure.