Impact of Sewage Sludge Application on Yield, Physical Input and Costs of Wheat

The main objective of this research is to determine the economic results of wheat production performed with or without application of sewage sludge. In the scope of this research, the effect of sludge application on parameters such as yield, total costs, variable costs, gross profit, unit costs and physical input usage in wheat production were determined. The bulk data was collected from farms, 39 of them applied sludge and 42 not applied, by questionnaires from 3 different farms of Ankara province. The Independent-Samples t test was used in order to analyze the result of sludge application in wheat production. The results revealed that the application of sludge increased the wheat yield by 17.63%, the gross profit by 64.90% and reduced the production cost by 26.01%. The differences in the amount of chemical fertilizer used and net income (P 0.01), unit costs and yield per decare (P 0.05) are significant in production of wheat performed using sludge in comparison with parcels where the sludge is not used. A significant relation in terms of total and variable expenses and gross income was not found out.