Are Your Fields Ready For Fieldwork?

If pushing your clock ahead, a green hue across the pasture or college basketball brackets brings on that familiar spring itch, it’s important to apply the salve of patience before you start scratching your fields. As difficult as that might seem, your soils will thank you — and your crops will reward you.

 

Anytime you pull into a field, you open the soil to compaction. Using equipment during wet field conditions compounds the amount of compaction.1 Conversely, soil compaction will be less severe when tillage, fertilizer application and planting occur when fields are dry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture offers a helpful guide for using the hand ball test and soil ribbon test to gauge soil moisture levels for various soil types.

 

When moisture levels reach acceptable levels, look to your tires as the next line of defense against soil compaction.1 Larger tires with lower air pressure allow for better flotation and reduce load on the soil surface. Properly inflated tires also improve operating efficiency. Adding duals or triples and ballasting your tractors also help improve flotation and minimize soil pressure. And, of course, implementing more Case IH track technology across your equipment lineup — from Steiger® and Magnum™ tractors to Axial-Flow® combines and, now, Early Riser® planters — can significantly reduce compaction throughout the growing season.

 

 

Using the same wheel tracks and controlling traffic patterns help limit compaction, too, since most damage occurs with the first pass of the implement. This can be accomplished effectively by using implements that are the same width for field operations throughout the season.1 Case IH Advanced Farming Systems (AFS) helps here by giving you sub-inch, repeatable accuracy pass after pass across your fields.