Subsoil Compaction: Cause, Impact, Detection, and Prevention

Abstract

Subsoil compaction can be described as a characteristic of modern agriculture. Historical agricultural machinery with its plough pans was replaced by heavier machinery. Intense traffic of heavy machinery on the field has various negative impacts on, e.g., soil air capacity, soil hydraulic conductivity, and porosity. Besides the yield depression, far-reaching ecological consequences occur, such as higher erodibilty or flood magnification. Besides visual identification, it is customary to employ mainly laboratory investigations of soil core samples from soil pits, or hand-driven penetration resistance measurements, to detect subsoil compaction. To avoid future harvest losses, detection on a larger field scale is essential. This can be done, e.g., by horizontal soil strength sensors or by non-destructive geophysical probes. Since re-establishment actions are costly and labour-intensive, reduction of agricultural machinery weight, contact area pressure and frequency of trafficking is necessary to reduce present and to prevent future subsoil compaction.