During harvest season, getting your crops out of the ground is always the top priority—but what about the future of your fields? According to research from The University of Minnesota, the way you address rutting and compaction today will profoundly affect your yield for up to three years.1 Here are three tips for setting up your fields for success by tackling compaction on your farm.
Cover crops
Compaction has a domino-like effect on the quality of your soil, robbing it of essential nutrients and discouraging crop growth. By planting cover crops after your fall harvest, you can replace carbon and organic matter back in the soil during a period when your field would normally be losing these vital components. In addition to improving overall soil quality, cover crops help limit equipment traffic. Eighty percent of compaction occurs during the first pass through the field.2 In order to prevent widespread compaction, it’s important to stick to the minimum number of lanes necessary when working your field.
Increasing organic soil matter
Evenly spreading and properly sizing and mixing the residue through the fall will help fields maximize the creation of organic matter and nutrient cycling during the winter months. Healthy soil will encourage healthy growth for your cash crops and cover crops, ensuring that compaction is minimized. Using a fertilizer, like manure or another organic byproduct, can significantly improve your soil structure, helping your fields retain vital nutrients for future crops. Another good practice is to incorporate fertilizer into a tillage pass after spreading it to reduce run-off and maximize efficiency.
Tillage
Proper tillage is an important step when creating a soil structure that better resists compaction. Case IH has several equipment options to serve a variety of unique tillage needs. The Ecolo-Tiger 875 disk ripper fractures the hard pan across the entire implement, leaving the soil with an even density ready to accept moisture and nutrients and support strong root development. Vertical tillage tools like the True-Tandem™ 335VT and True-Tandem 335 Barracuda are fast and efficient for breaking down surface ruts and dealing with issues from wet field conditions. They’re also great for managing sand deposits and residue while leveling the soil so it can begin breaking down over the winter. For min-till and no-till producers, the Ecolo-Til® 2500 outfitted with Case IH No-till points and No-till shanks can shatter compaction while leaving the surface residue virtually disturbance-free.
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RESOURCES
- DeJong-Hughes J. Soil compaction management at harvest. University of Minnesota Extension website. http://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/tillage/compaction/compaction-management-at-harvest/. Accessed September 6, 2016.
- Jasa P. Avoiding Compaction at Harvest. University of Nebraska Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources CropWatch website. http://cropwatch.unl.edu/avoiding-compaction-harvest. Accessed September 6, 2016