Influence of soil physical and chemical characteristics on soil compaction in farm field

Abstract

Farm soil compaction is influenced by animal loads and Agricultural machinery. In this paper the influence of soil physical and chemical characteristics on soil compaction at Awash Melkasa farm field. Compaction of soil test was taken at five different depths which are; 5 cm, 10 cm, 15 cm, 20 cm, and 25 cm with the help of a hydraulically operated cone penetrometer. Those five depths were used in 15 sample points (point A to point O) to take 75 soil compaction data using hydraulic powered a Spot-on digital soil cone penetrometer from an area of 0.6 ha farmland. A correlation of 15 sample points (A to O) of soil compaction in the field was performed. For soil physical and chemical tests in laboratory soil samples were taken from selected farm fields at 3 different ranges of depths (0–10, 10–20, and 20–30 cm). Averagely the highest and the lowest compaction values are 3947.32 Kpa and 2667.72 Kpa respectively. The soil texture laboratory test indicates the soil was a clay loam with 36.74 % sand soil, 30.31 % clay soil, and 33 % silt soil. The highest and the lowest percentages of moisture value were 13.97 and 16.04 respectively. Total organic carbon, organic matter, and total nitrogen increase as the soil compaction increases and vice versa. The output of this study adds value to the field of agricultural mechanization since the weight of machinery is high, knowing the soil's physical and chemical properties and investigating the relation with the soil compaction rate is necessary.

Keywords

• Farm field
• Soil chemical properties
• Soil compaction
• Soil physical properties