Recent policy initiatives aimed in part at reducing the use of agricultural chemicals have encouraged rotation as a substitute for insecticides. In addition to potentially reducing environmental risk, substituting rotation for insecticides can reduce farm-level variable costs. Utilizing USDA survey data, we compare cotton farmers' per acre insecticide expenditures across different cropping patterns. In all instances, differences in insecticide expenditures between cropping patterns, though sometimes significant, are relatively small. Since farmers cropping decisions are based upon expected profits, continuous cotton will be the preferred cropping pattern if opportunity costs of first year cotton are great (i.e. the expected profit-stream of non-continuous cropping patterns is lower than for continuous cotton).