Crop Residues Distribution after Tillage Operations under Controlled and Random Traffic Technology

Controlled traffic farming is a technology used to avoid soil compaction introduced by field machinery load and traffic. The benefits in improved soil conditions and yield increase were shown in Australia, the US and some parts of Europe. The use of permanent tramlines for every field operation was considered as a barrier to implementation in some parts of Europe. This was mainly due to fear from tillage quality in terms of crop residues distribution. The paper reports the results of the two-year assessment of the technology compared to traditional random traffic treatments in field scale experiments. The spring barley and oilseed rape crops were grown. Measurements were taken after the stubble breaking tillage operation with the Lemken disc harrows. Image analysis was used to calculate the distribution of crop residues. Results showed that the use of permanent tramlines has no negative influence on crop residues distribution.