Effect of moisture content and Tractor traffic on power requirements and some physical properties of soil

Abstract

Soil compaction is one of the main problems that many agricultural lands facing globally. Soil compaction is affected by several factors, the main of which are soil moisture and the applied pressure on the soil as a result of the of agricultural machinery traffic. Therefore, this study was aimed to find out the effect of soil moisture content and tractor traffic on studied indicators (drawbar power, fuel consumption, slippage percentage, specific energy, soil resistance to cutting and shaping, dry bulk density, porosity), The experiment was carried out in the autumn agricultural season (2021-2022), in one of the fields of Wana sub-district (the village of Qara Kharab) of the Mosul district, which is about (20) km away from it. The field was designed according to Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD), the factor experiment managed based on split-split block design with four replications. The main plots were allocated to soil moisture with two levels (17-20)%, and sub-plots were allocated to farming systems at two levels also (Random Traffic Farming (RTF), Controlled Traffic Farming (CTF)), Duncan's multiple-range test was used to compare the means at the (0.05) probability level. The results showed that moisture content of 17% compared with 20%, significantly reduced soil resistance to cutting and shaping and fuel consumption by (40%, 49%) respectively. CTF compared with RTF, significantly decreased the power requirement indicators by (15%, 27%, 30%, 31%,32%) for slippage, specific energy, fuel consumption, drawbar power, and soil resistance to cutting and shaping, respectively

Keywords

• soil moisture
• traffic system
• drawbar power
• specific energy