Re: need some compaction data

Posted by HeyPigFarmer on October 28, 2008 at 12:26:42 from (99.154.26.193):

In Reply to: need some compaction data posted by spitz on October 28, 2008 at 05:55:23:

I don't know if this is quite the answer you are looking for but here it goes anyway.

So you say they were driving around in "wet" cornfields. How "wet" were these fields because soil compaction is a product of both the amount of energy put into compacting the soil and the moisture content of that soil. There is an optimum point that can be achieved, which on inorganic fine-grained soils is usually 10-12% moisture, at this optimum moisture content it requires the least amount of energy to get maximum compaction. Lower than that point there isn't enough water to provide lubrication and surface tension reduction to allow the particles to slide past each other, therefore to get to the maximum unit weight more energy has to be put into the soil. Higher than that point the air voids in the soil start to be reduced because they are filled with water and if you have ever tried to compact water it just doesn't work, unless you put enough energy into the soil to squeeze the water out of the voids.

Now how far down did this compact your soil? Well, depends on how many times they drove across a certain area. This is why plate compactors and rollers vibrate, to increase the number of loadings per pass to get the maximum penetration and energy input to the soil. But with a truck you don't get near the number of loadings, even if they crossed it 10 times the loadings are slow enough that the soil will tend to bridge and spread the weight out over a wider path as the depth increases. If they were using something heavy like a one ton with pizza cutter road tires they could probably penetrate 6-8 inches below the bottom of their tire track. If they had wider mud tires, maybe 4-6 inches. If the conditions were right.

So if you conventional till, or use any type of deep tillage it should penetrate deep enough to get though where they drove and compacted it. If you no till then this will definitely hurt your yield. As far as the plant parts go, I am clueless on that. I just know dirt.

One more thing you might want to take into account, depending on how far they dug into the ground is messing with your nutrient layers in your soil profile.Something else to think about to nail them with. Plus if it was a wet hole before because of the soil displacement and the soil they drove off with on and under their trucks it will be an even wetter hole now, which can lead to yield loss, workability issues etc. If you no till, this compaction could also cause water to not get to your tile if the field is tiled and your back to water issues.

Hope this helps.

This post was edited by HeyPigFarmer at 12:29:43 10/28/08.

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