Controlled traffic farming: effect of tractor passes on spatial structure of soil resistance in a typic Argiudoll from Argentina.

ALESSO, C.A.; CIPRIOTTI, P.A.; IMHOFF, S.C.; LINGUETTI, C.G.; MASOLA, M.J.

Botucatu, Sao Paulo

Simposio; IV Simposio de Geo-estadística aplicada en Ciencias Agrarias; 2015

Controlled traffic farming (CTF) is one of the proposed alternatives to deal with soil compaction, a machinery driven problem in modern agriculture. This technology split the field into zones for vehicular traffic (i.e. tramlines) were some degree of compaction is expected, and zones were soil conditions are optimized for root growth. The quantification of the spatial extent of soil compaction inducted by CTF nearby to the tramlines is useful to understand the response of crops. The aim of this work was to model the spatial structure of SR under increasing number of passes of tractor vehicle simulating CTF conditions in a Typic Argiudoll from Santa Fe (Argentina). Four traffic intensities (0, 6, 12 and 18 passes of a tractor) were applied to experimental plots following an RCBD design with three replicates. For each plot, the spatial distribution of soil resistance (SR) in wheeled and non-wheeled zones was estimated using penetrometry and geoestatistical techniques. In all treatments, SR showed a quadratic trend with depth which explained between 67-68% of SR variation. The number of passes of the tractor has no significant effect on the range of spatial dependence of residuals. No differences were detected in the proportion of pixels with SR > 2 MPa between treatments and wheeled and non-wheeled zones. The mean proportion was 4.86% (± 4.5%). These results showed the high variability of this measure which should be taken into account to design further experiments.