Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
306434 | Soil and Tillage Research | 2009 | 5 Pages |
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.