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Economic Analysis of Soil Compaction Due to Machinery Traffic

Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org

Citation:  Applied Engineering in Agriculture. 2(2): 85-88. (doi: 10.13031/2013.26716) @1986
Authors:   K. R. Gunjal, G. S. V. Raghavan
Keywords:   Cropping systems, Soil compaction, Wheel traffic

EXPERIMENTS were conducted to investigate the yield-loss effects of soil compaction due to machinery traffic on green peas. Using the estimated models and compaction area percentage for various tractor sizes, farm level yield losses were established. The total economic costs (loss plus cost) indicate that the optimum tractor size for a specialized pea farm is around 105 kW. The relationship between economic costs and number of passes implies that the management of field preparation in 4 instead of 5 passes will save about $28.25/ha. The results have implications for determining optimum size and use of machinery.

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