Silage-corn harvesting machinery traffic effects on soil bulk density and water permeability

Abstract

Soil compaction caused by machinery traffic affects the growth of agricultural crops and also has environmental effects like soil damage and erosion. Field experiments were conducted to study the effects of repeated silage-corn harvesting machinery traffic on dry soil bulk density and porosity variations at three different sampling depths, moreover average water permeability coefficient of the examined silty clay loam soil was measured using the falling head method of water permeability test. The examined treatments which were applied while harvesting silage-corn with the combination of tractor, chopper and truck were the number of traffic passes and depths of soil sampling. Significant differences between soil compaction treatments were observed in bulk density and porosity of soil. Numerically, 22% increase in soil bulk density and 19% reduction in soil porosity were recorded due to the effect of two passes of the examined machineries over the field terrain comparing to the non-traffic treatment. Moreover; soil sampling at 0–10 cm and 20–30 cm depths resulted in the highest and the lowest soil porosity respectively.