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Soil compaction compromises spring seedbeds with slow and gappy crop germination
16 April 2020
Avoiding compaction can deliver this instead
The spring oats shown in the top photo, taken during trials at Silsoe some years ago, were sown on a trafficked plot on the same day and at the same depth as those sown with a gantry, shown in the bottom photo - both photos were taken on the same day.
Subsequent measurements revealed that eventual plant numbers on the trafficked plot were 581/m2, whereas they were 707/m2 on the non-trafficked soil.
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The spring oats shown in the top photo, taken during trials at Silsoe some years ago, were sown on a trafficked plot on the same day and at the same depth as those sown with a gantry, shown in the bottom photo - both photos were taken on the same day. Subsequent measurements revealed that eventual plant numbers on the trafficked plot were 581/m2, whereas they were 707/m2 on the non-trafficked soil.
It’s pleasing to hear that the UK Government has today announced a new vision to protect the soil. Part of that vision should be incentives to adopt CTF as best practice. Defra (UK Government body) funded research in 2011/12 (SP1305) to assess the relative costs of soil compaction mitigation. Soil compaction is one of the main causes of soil degradation costing farmers and the environment millions of pounds every year. In all cases, CTF was the most effective means of combating compaction both in monetary terms and as far as CO2 not emitted and nitrogen not lost were concerned. This shows that CTF works with existing equipment, but in these times of dire need to reduce our negative impacts on the environment, how much better it would be if it could be adopted within a wide span or gantry tractor system!