The evaluation of agricultural machines field trafficking intensity for different soil tillage technologies

Fields trafficking by wheeled farm machines results often in unfavourable soil compaction. In order to monitor trafficking intensity under different soil tillage technologies, every machine was equipped with a DGPS signal receiver before the entrance into the field under conventional, minimum and zero tillage technology. Positioning data was automatically logged every 2 s and the dimensions of tyres (mainly width) and wheel spacing were marked for every machine. Trajectories of farm machines trafficking and wheel tracks covering 1 ha area are shown for different technologies evaluated during one growing season. The results document that up to 95.3% of the total field area was run-over with a machine at least once during a year, when using conventional tillage. Up to 72.8% or 55.7% of the total field area was run-over when using minimum tillage and direct seeding, respectively. It was calculated that 145.6% of covered area can be run-over repeatedly for conventional tillage, 44.8% for minimum tillage and 18.4% only for direct seeding.