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A gronomy J our n al • Volume 10 0 , I s sue 3 • 2 0 0 8 591

-Legal and institutional changes that centralized control of the Philippine coconut oil refining and exporting industries enabled the Philippines to exercise some of its potential dominant-firm market power. If the elasticity of demand for coconut oil continues to increase. in part due to concerns about the health risks from eating saturated fats. Philippine exports will increase slightly while the price and Philippine revenue will fall significantly within the next decade.

The adoption of precision technologies that spatially register measurements using global positioning systems (GPS) greatly facilitates conducting large-scale on-farm research by farmers. On-farm experiments that utilize producer equipment include variations in agronomic practices that occur in situations where we want to predict the effect of inputs on yield. The domain of inference for such on-farm studies therefore more closely matches that desired by researchers. To investigate the feasibility of on-farm research using GPS, a study was conducted to evaluate the potential benefit of site-specific weed management. The study utilized producer-maintained field-scale equipment on four Montana farms in dryland spring wheat production. Paired site-specific and whole-field herbicide treatment areas were established in 0.9 to 1.9-ha blocks using consultant weed maps and a geographic information system (GIS). Yield was unaffected by herbicide treatment strategy (site-specific or broadcast). Minimal detectable yield differences were evaluated for the experimental design (0.2 T ha−1). Net returns increased when the percentage of field infested by wild oat decreased. Visual ratings of wild oat density taken at harvest indicated no difference in wild oat control between treatments in two of four site-years. This research suggests that producer-owned equipment can be used to compare treatments, but the accuracy and subsequent power of such comparisons are likely to be low.

Success in intermediate economics and agricultural economics classes with respect to course prerequisites was evaluated. Prerequisites were statistically important for both intermediate microeconomics and in two of the three agricultural economics courses evaluated. The primaryfinding was that-for three of the four courses evaluated-the higher the proportion of students who completed the listed prerequisite, ceteris paribus, the lower the grade for any given student.Results also indicate that students with higher ex ante GPAs, and to some extent higher math equivalent SAT scores, received higher grades.