About the Authors

Andrew R. Kniss

akniss@uwyo.edu

Affiliation University of Wyoming, Department of Plant Sciences, Laramie, Wyoming, United States of America

Steven D. Savage

Affiliation Independent consultant, Encinitas, California, United States of America

Randa Jabbour

Affiliation University of Wyoming, Department of Plant Sciences, Laramie, Wyoming, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript declare the following potentially competing interests: ARK: ARK grew up on a conventional farm. Funding has been provided to the University of Wyoming from the following organizations in support of ARK's research and education program, either through unrestricted gifts, research contracts, or grants: Arysta LifeScience, BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, FMC, Hatch Act Funds – USDA, Loveland Industries, Monsanto, NovaSource, Repar Corporation, StateLine Bean Cooperative, Syngenta, USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture, University of Wyoming Department of Plant Sciences, University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources, Valent, Western Sugar Cooperative, Winfield Solutions, Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station, Wyoming Crop Improvement Association, Wyoming Department of Agriculture, and Wyoming Seed Certification. ARK currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Weed Science Society of America. ARK currently serves on the Farming Systems Trial Advisory Panel for the Rodale Institute. RJ: Funding has been provided in support of RJ's research and education program in the form of grants from USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA Western IPM Center, Western SARE, Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station, and the Wyoming Open Spaces Initiative. RJ currently serves on the leadership team for the eOrganic community of practice. RJ is a member of the Entomological Society of America, the Ecological Society of America, and the Sustainable Agriculture Education Association. SDS: SDS has worked in the past for DuPont Company, for the biocontrol company Mycogen, and since 1996 as an independent consultant working for a wide variety of clients in the field of agricultural technology either directly or through other consulting firms. That work has included large players involved in synthetic chemicals, seeds and traits (e.g. Dow, BASF, Bayer, Syngenta, Monsanto) as well as smaller companies involved in biological controls and natural products (e.g. Agraquest, Novozymes and others under current nondisclosure agreements). None of this consulting has concerned a comparison of organic and conventional yields. SDS has been a paid speaker for many different grower organizations in the US and Canada, and has been an invited speaker by the North Carolina Biotechnology Association, the Ag Innovation Showcase, and CropLife America. He has been paid to spend two weeks in Hawaii addressing public meetings sponsored by the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association. His role as a contributor for Forbes is not compensated. As of April 2016 (after preparation and initial submission of this manuscript) SDS has been employed part-time by CropLife Foundation, a 501.3c nonprofit in a role communicating the benefits of crop production materials including those used by both organic and conventional growers. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: ARK SDS. Data curation: SDS ARK. Formal analysis: ARK. Funding acquisition: ARK RJ. Investigation: ARK SDS RJ. Methodology: ARK SDS. Project administration: ARK. Resources: ARK SDS. Software: ARK. Supervision: ARK. Validation: ARK. Visualization: ARK. Writing – original draft: RJ ARK. Writing – review & editing: RJ ARK SDS.