One of the most essential metrics that expresses the state of soil compaction is soil penetration resistance. Soil compaction is a physical limiting factor for root growth and plant emergence, and it is one of the leading reasons of reduced agricultural output around the world, thus the type and degree of tillage that best suits the soil conditions is crucial. Soil compaction can also affect the functioning of agricultural machines and implements, leading to an increase in the potency need for traction. The vertical penetrometer is a well-known tool for determining soil penetration resistance. Its data are insufficient to characterise the soil compaction state since there may be variation in soil compaction values within a single site, necessitating multiple measurements to achieve high precision in the measurement, which takes a lot of time and effort. As a result, the goal of this research was to develop a more accurate, less time-consuming, and speedier method of measuring soil penetration resistance and generating soil compaction maps for various soil depth layers. To do so, a locally built and manufactured horizontal penetrometer, which was placed on an agricultural tractor and consisted of a mechanical system and a data acquisition system (DAS) to tabulate the recorded quantities, was created and manufactured. The data collected might then be used to create soil compaction maps. The data was automatically stratified to determine the distribution of soil compaction at various strata. The system was successfully tested in the field at the Ras-Sudr Research Station in South Sinai, on sandy loam soil, where nine levels of device forward speed with tractor (0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, and 4.5) km.h-1 and three levels of measurement depth (20, 30 and 40) cm were investigated. The proposed horizontal penetrometer's soil penetration resistance measurements were compared to the traditional vertical penetrometer's measurements at the same measurement locations and soil depths in order to calibrate the horizontal penetrometer and calculate the correction factor at different speeds and measurement depths, and it was discovered that the horizontal penetrometer reading was greatly affected by their change. The horizontal penetrometer reading correction factor is calculated using a multiple regression algorithm based on the speed and measurement depth. The correction factor of horizontal penetrometer readings can be determined using this equation if both the speed of movement and the measuring depth of the penetrometer are known. Then, at various depths, maps were constructed to describe soil penetration resistance. As a result, a complete image of the soil compaction status can be obtained with the least amount of time and effort while maintaining excellent accuracy. This enables the best tillage type to be determined. The horizontal penetrometer was examined by looking at how the draught force (kN), fuel consumption rate (l.h-1), fuel consumption per unit area (l.ha-1) and actual field capacity were affected by the forward speed of the device's movement with the tractor (ha.h-1). The results showed that raising the forward speed from 0.5 to 4.5 km.h-1 resulted in a 197 percent increase in draught force, 191 percent increase in fuel consumption rate, and 610 percent increase in actual field capacity, respectively. The horizontal penetrometer's optimum speed, which resulted in the lowest fuel consumption per unit area (l.ha-1), was found to be at 3.13 km.h-1. It was concluded that the system used in this study could be used to assess compaction distribution at different soil layers and create maps that show the spatial variation of compaction distribution in the soil at different depths, allowing the appropriate type and degree of tillage to be determined.
Author(S) Details
A. A. Meselhy
Agricultural Mechanization Unit, Soil and Water Conservation Department, Desert Research Center, Egypt.
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