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The Art of Tillage
Joel Gruver, Robert Walters and Ken Fager
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What is tillage ?
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Does this look like your farm ?
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Soil tool dynamics
Soils with good tilth crumble easily in
response to tillage
Tensile stress
Compression stress
Shear stress
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Granular crumb structure
Compacted massive structure
3 soil properties affect tilth
Moisture content
Texture
Structure
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Plasticity vs. Friability
How does your soil respond to tillage ?
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Diverse tillage objectives
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Creating the ideal seed bed
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Alleviating compaction
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Firming a seed bed
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Shaping the soil surface
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Anchoring plastic mulch
Preparation for mulch laying
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Mechanical weed control
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Manipulating soil biology
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Macerating residues to promote biofumigation
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Harvesting root crops
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Accomplishing multiple
tillage objectives in one pass
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The dark side of tillage
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Compaction layers resulting
from tillage
Disk pan
Plow pan
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Which soil has a healthier respiratory and
circulatory system ?
White zones are pores 1mm
Tillage pan
No-till soil
Tilled soil
(Young and Ritz, 2000)
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Crusting
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Erosion
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Effect of tillage on microbial activity
Havlin et al. (1999)
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OM inputs
Tillage
OM inputs
Tillage
Soil macro-aggregates form around organic
residues
Tillage disrupts aggregates and accelerates
decomposition
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High potential for poor synchrony
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Available for loss
Adapted from Robertson et al.
Tillage
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Crop residues Cover Crops Animal manure
Crop residues
20 years of similar tillage intensity but
contrasting levels of organic inputs
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Some areas of the southeastern US have
E horizons that are prone to compaction because
of their well graded sandy texture
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Annual subsoiling is recommended to break up the
compacted layer
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NO
Brady and Weil (2002)
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When incorporating organic inputs
Remember the fence post principle !!
Schriefer (1984)
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The many benefits of surface residues
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Intensive tillage
Long term no-till
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Holistic approach to healthy roots
Bailey and Lazarovits (2003)
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Brazil Planting without ploughing A jab planter
for direct manual planting - one of the tools
designed for conservation agricultureFAO
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Conventional tillage systems
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The general-purpose moldboard plow
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Patterns of soil movement
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Actions of the moldboard plow slice, lift,
fracture, and invert
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Design of the moldboard concave insures
fracturing of soil
Large separate
Fractured separates
Small crumbs
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Furrow wall, approx. 6-7 deep
Furrow bottom
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Landside and heel adjustment
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Coulter Adjustments
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16 W 2 D ? 8 o
16 W 7 D ? 28 o
16 W 10 D ? 40 o
16 W 12 D ? 55 o
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Actions of the disk harrow cut, roll, mix
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Moldboard plow
Disk
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Conservation tillage systems
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Tillage in clean vs. high residue systems
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Undercutting sweeps
Coulter
Point
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Can you guess the purpose of this tillage
operation?
Location McNealy Farm Laurenburg, NC Date 1961